Return Engagement

Smith entered the Social Security files in Washington-the greatest repository of data on U.S. citizens in existence-and pulled out the addresses of all Harold Smiths in the target group currently living in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and upstate New York-the states where the unknown killer was likely to strike next.

There were only three Harold Smiths in that geographical area who were over sixty. The only one listed in the telephone book was Dr. Harold VV. Smith of Rye, New York, listed as the director of Folcroft. Smith did not have a listed home number.

T'he sweat began pouring from Smith's body so hot and so fast his glasses actually steamed. He wiped them off hastily.

If the killer was indeed picking his victims out of telephone directories, he should have been to Folcroft by now. He was overdue.

At that critical psychological moment, gunfire erupted outside Smith's office.

It was a short volley of shots, like a string of firecrackers going off. It barely penetrated the walls of Smith's office, but to a man trained to recognize gunfire, there was no mistaking it.

Smith grabbed the desk phone and punched the frontgate extension.

"What's happening down there?" he demanded.

"There's someone trying to get in, Dr. Smith. I think we chased him off."

"What did he look like?" Smith demanded. "Describe him."

"Wait. There he goes. He's gone over the fence."

"The fence! Is he on the fence or over it?"

"I dunno. He moved too fast."

"Describe him, please," said Dr. Smith, gaining control over his voice. Calmly he reached into his desk drawer and removed his old OSS-vintage .45 automatic. Gunshots came through on the receiver.

"Guard? Guard?" called Dr. Smith, cradling the receiver between shoulder and ear. He sent a round into the automatic's chamber with a hard pull on the slide. He was ready, but for what?

Smith heard the guard shouting. "Inside, he's inside!" the guard was saying.

Then there was only a clattering noise. The guard's phone had been dropped. Suddenly.

Dimly the sounds of squealing tires, ragged gunshots, and angry shouting men filtered in through the walls and were echoed through the phone. Smith hung up, getting to his feet.

A loud knocking came at his door. "Yes?"

"Hastings, Dr. Smith. We have a problem out here."

"I know," Smith told the guard. "I think we have an intruder."

"Orders, sir?"

"Keep him out at all costs. And shoot on sight. To wound if possible. To kill if necessary."

"Yes, sir," called the guard. Smith heard his footsteps fade away. He extinguished the lights in his office. Bitter moonlight poured through the spacious picture window. There would be no danger from that quarter. The glass was bulletproof, unshatterable.

Standing behind his desk, Smith was a resolute, ragged figure. Men who had stood and fought at Lexington and Concord looked as he did, simple Yankee stock fighting for their farms and their families. Smith, despite his high-tech resources and his awesome international responsibilities, was at heart a Vermont Yankee who firmly believed in his country and its principles and was willing to lay down his life for both.

The automatic felt cool in his moist palm.

Who? he thought for the thousandth time. Who was this man who knew only his name and age and with a murderous, obsessive single-mindedness had killed and killed in a blind brutal pattern designed to eradicate him? Why had the killer waited so long to seek him out?

"He's in the elevator!" Hastings' voice called faintly. The moon went behind a cloud, plunging the room into abject darkness. Smith gripped his weapon more tightly. He cut the video terminal, its greenish wash of light distracting him at this crucial moment.

More gunshots came, too many. It was a firefight. It had to be. However, the intruder did not sound as if he were heavily armed. No rapid firing from a machine pistol or other high-velocity weapons ricocheted in the corridors. There was only the ragged bark of handguns.

"Here he comes," a voice yelled. "The elevator door's opening. Take him now."

Bullets stormed in the outer hall. Then there was silence.

"Did you get him?" Smith called. He was not leaving the room. Not that he was afraid. But there was only one way into his office. That one door would give him a clear shot. And one clear shot was all that Harold Smith wanted. Or needed.

"Did you get him?" Smith repeated.

"He musta tricked us," Hastings called through the door. "He's not in the elevator."

And suddenly Hastings howled in fright.

"There he is! There he is!" The bullet sounds began again. Briefly.

They stopped one by one, until Smith could hear only the nervous clicking of a gun hammer dropping on empty chambers.

"Don't hurt me!" a guard screeched. "Don't hurt me." And his voice choked off. Smith heard the mushy thud of a body falling to the floor.

Smith swallowed hard. One clear shot, that was all. Light footsteps approached. The door was outlined in yeilow light from the foyer. At the bottom crack, the light was intercepted by moving feet. It seemed like one man. One man, one bullet. Smith was ready.

"The door is unlocked, whoever you are," Smith called out.

The door whipped open. A lean shadow stood framed in the doorway. Smith fired once coolly.

And missed.

The lean shadow faded off to one side, and the door slammed shut, returning the room to darkness.

Smith listened for footsteps, his gun held two-handed before him. He swept the room with its muzzle, one eye on the big window, made faintly visible by cloud-screened moonlight. If he passed in front of the window, Smith had him.

The intruder did not pass before the window. He came the other way.

Suddenly Smith felt a vise clamp around his weapon. It was no longer in his fingers.

He was helpless, and for the first time, a sob racked his throat. It was all over. He would never see his wife again.

"I just want to see your face before I die," Smith said chokingly.

Light blazed suddenly in the room and Smith looked into a pair of the coldest, deadliest eyes he had ever seen.

"Don't break up, Smitty," Remo Williams said. "I missed you too."

Chapter 16

Boyce Barlow wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

He had been outwitted the first time, he and his cousins Luke and Bud. He admitted it. He told the Fuhrer Blutsturz straight out, "I screwed up."

Konrad Blutsturz' voice crackled over the receiver. "I know. It is all over the evening news. What happened?"

"Me and Luke and Bud snuck in that building, like you said. We asked at the door for Ferris Wheel."

"D'Orr. Ferris D'Orr."

"Ferris Door. That's a funny name, Door. We asked if the guy was working late. It was late on account of we took a wrong turn outside of Roanoke and lost three hours. It's hard getting good directions from folks out here. They all talk funny."

"Go on," said Konrad Blutsturz.

"Well, when the guard fella said that Ferris guy was inside, we asked real polite if we could see him. We said we were big admirers of his. When the guard said no, we weren't sure what to do so we shot him."

"You shot him. Good."

"We couldn't get the door open, though. It was locked, but there wasn't no keyhole. The guard had a bunch of keys, but there was no keyhole in the door. Can you beat that?"

"Then what?"

"We busted a window."

"Which set off an alarm."

"Hey! How'd you know that?"

"Never mind," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Continue."

"Well, we looked and we looked and finally we found one guy hiding in a big room with all this science-looking stuff. He kinda looked like the newspaper picture of the Ferris Wheel guy and so we asked if he was him."

"And he said no," Konrad Blutsturz said tiredly.

"Hey, that's right. How'd you know?"

"Please continue."

"Well, when he said no, naturally we kept on looking. But we couldn't find the guy. I think he musta gone home. About that time, the cops showed up and we cut out of there. Barely made it, too. I think Luke shot one of the cops. I dunno. Are we in trouble?"

There was a long silence. The receiver hissed.

"Herr Fuhrer?" said Bovee Barlow. He pronounced it "Hair Fairer." He couldn't help it. It kept coming out that way. It always annoyed Herr Fuhrer Blutsturz, but he couldn't help it.

"Everyone knows you're looking for Ferris D'Orr now," said Konrad Blutsturz slowly. "They will move him. It will be more difficult now."

"Can we come home now? Bud is homesick. And you can't find country music on any of the radio stations around here."

"No. You screwed up. You admitted so yourself."

"The guy who said he wasn't this Ferris guy really was, wasn't he?"

"He was."

"Hey, you were right, Bud," Boyce called. "It was him, the stinker."

"Boyce Barlow," said Konrad Blutsturz, "find a place to hide your truck. Find some woods. Stay there. Sleep there. Call me in the morning. I will have new instructions for you."

"We gonna try to get him again?"

"Exactly."

"Well, okay. I'm kinda scared, but the way that guy up and lied through his teeth at us, well, it sets my boil to boiling."

"Hold that thought," said Konrad Blutsturz, and hung up.

Ilsa Gans came into the office carrying a stack of letters.

Konrad Blutsturz looked up from his desk. He wore a terrycloth robe for comfort. Rougher cloth scratched his ravaged skin. Another scourge visited by that devil Harold Smith.

"More goodies," Ilsa said brightly.

She perched herself on the armrest of the wheelchair. Her perfume filled his nostrils.

"From the members?"

"Yes, this one is from St. Louis," she said, razoring the envelope open with a multiblade letter opener in the shape of a swastika. It spilled thin folded pages torn from a phone directory into her lap.

"There are lots and lots of Harold Smiths on this page," Ilsa breathed happily.

Konrad Blutsturz made a disgusted sound in his throat. "Why couldn't his name have been Zankowski or Boyington?" he said miserably.

"It's not that bad. The over-sixties are circled. There's only . . . one-two-three . . . um, twelve of them. According to the letter, our man in St. Louis pretended to be a pollster and got their ages."

"Twelve is too many, Ilsa. I am not voting, I cannot drive around this country killing Harold Smiths for the rest of my days."

"Oh, but I'll be with you. You know that."

Konrad Blutsturz patted Iisa's hand warmly. "I know that, liebchen, but look how few we have done in two months."

"You're not giving Lip!" Ilsa said, jumping to her feet. There was fire in her eves. "I was counting on having his skin. I want to cover my diary with it. Don't you think that would be neat? On the last page I could write, 'We finally caught him and used his skin to cover this book.' "

"No, Ilsa, I am not giving up. It is just that I have been thinking. This way is not working. instead of going to them, they should be coming to us."

"How are we going to do that?'

"We will invite them. We will send out invitations to every Harold Smith we can find."

"You mean a party?"

"No, I mean a massacre."

Ilsa dropped to her knees before Konrad Blutsturz. "Tell me more."

"No, it is just an idea forming. I must talk to Dr. Beflecken first. I am going to ask him to do more for me than just provide legs of titanium. Much more," he said, eyeing the gently rising valley of her cleavage. And he smiled.

"Oooh, I can hardly wait. Does this mean that Boyce captured Ferris?"

"No, he failed. He is a fool. But only a fool would have allowed me to gain so much control over so many blindly obedient followers so quickly."

"Oh, poo. Can't we do something? You just have to have legs."

"You are so eager, Ilsa. You have no patience. I admit my patience is wearing, as well. But our time is coming soon, I promise."

"I was thinking," said Ilsa slowly. "After we get Harold Smith-the real one, I mean-do you think we could go after the Jews next?"

"The Jews?"

"I mean, really go after them. Not just picket them and insult them."

"Why would you want to do that, my child?"

"Don't you remember? They murdered my parents. You told me so."

"Ach, I had forgotten. Yes, the Jews hacked them to pieces with machetes."

"I thought they beat them to death," Ilsa said puzzledly.

"They beat them first. Then they hacked them. I neglected to tell you the whole story. You were too young in those days to hear the whole story," said Konrad Blutsturz, gently stroking her blond hair. "But why do you wish to kill all Jews, when only a handful committed that heinous deed?"

"To carry on, of course. Just because we lost the war doesn't mean we give up. You didn't give up. No matter what they did to you, you didn't give up."

"I am after one man," said Konrad Blutsturz, flexing his steel claw.

"What about after that? I mean, we'll have this wonderful organization and all these guns and bombs and soldiers. We have to do something with them. We just have to."

"After Smith . . ." Konrad Blutsturz said. "After Smith we will discuss this. You are so young and trusting, Ilsa. That is what I like about you." And he gave her a squeeze that just happened to crush one breast. Ilsa didn't seem to notice. In fact, she smiled.

Boyce Barlow took a last swig of breakfast, and crushing it, threw the Coors can into a ditch.

"Paugh!" he said. "That's good."

"You gonna call Hair Fairer now, Boyce? Are you?" asked Luke.

"Yeah. There's a pay phone up the road. I'll walk."

Boyce Barlow got the secretary at Fortress Purity on the second ring. He winced slightly at the sound of her voice. It was so thickly Germanic it bothered him. "Yes?" the secretary said.

"Put me though to Hair Fairer," Boyce said.

The line clicked and the dry voice of Konrad Blutsturz came on.

"Hair Fairer? It's Boyce."

"They have moved Ferris D'Orr to a safe house, as I anticipated," Konrad Blutsturz said without preamble. "The news media have discovered the location. It is in Baltimore."

"Where's that?"

"In Maryland."

"Never heard of it."

"Get in your truck and drive north. Go through Washington, D.C."

"I've heard of that one."

"Good. Keep going through Washington and you will see the signs saying Baltimore. The address is 445 Lafayette Street. Ferris D'Orr is in the penthouse, the top floor."

"Sounds simple enough," said Boyce Barlow.

"It is simple. That is why I am trusting this important task to you."

"On our way, then."

"Don't forget the nebulizer."

"I won't."

"And throw away your wallets. Just in case."

"Just in case of what?"

"Capture," said honrad Blutsturz.

"Shoot, Hair Fairer, there's three of us. I got a twelve-gauge shotgun and Luke and Bud got good mailorder rifles. Who's gonna capture us? We got just about everybody outgunned."

"D'Orr will be protected. Go in shooting if you have to, but do not shoot him and do not get captured. If you are captured, say nothing. Tell the others to do the same. Keep your mouths shut like the proud Aryans that you are and we will take care of you. Now, do as I say. Get rid of everything in your wallets."

"The money too?"

"No, not the money. Just your personal papers."

"Good. I figger we might need the money for gas."

"Call me as soon as you have succeeded," said Konrad Blutsturz.

Boyce Barlow trudged back to his truck, which was parked behind a massive stand of magnolia trees.

"Hair Fairer says we gotta get rid of our personal papers," he told Luke and Bud.

"Why?" Bud and Luke asked in unison.

"In case we get captured, he said."

Boyce got behind the wheel of the truck and turned the ignition.

"Who's gonna try and capture us?" Luke said, climbing in beside him while Bud vaulted into the truck bed. "You got a double-barreled shotgun."

"I tried tellin' the man that, but you know how he is-extra cautious."

They dug out their wallets, tore their Social Security cards and the papers to tiny bits and, as Boyce Barlow set the pickup in motion, released them, piece by piece, down the highway, where they joined the lightly falling snow.

At Fortress Purity, Herr Fuhrer Kanrad Blutsturz hung up the phone and turned to Ilsa.

"They are trying again."

"Think they'll get it right this time?"

"No, I do not."

Ilsa's face pouted. "Then why send them?"

"Because they might. If they do, it will save us more exertion. If they do not, then the White Aryan League falls entirely into our hands, Ilsa."

"Oooh, good thinking."

"And then, Ilsa, you and I will get Ferris D'Orr."

"And Harold Smith," said Ilsa. "Don't forget him."

"I will never forget Harold Smith." said Konrad Blutsturz, his black button eyes reflecting the light of the fireplace. "Never."

Chapter 17

Remo Williams took the big automatic in one hand and shuttled the ejector slide with the other. The mechanism spewed shells like quarters from a slot machine.

He tossed the empty gun onto the desk.

"Remo," Dr. Harold Smith said, ashen-faced, "what on earth are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Sinanju."

"I'm delighted to see you too, Smitty," Remo replied sarcastically.

Smith sank into his leather chair, threw his gray head back, and closed his eyes. A long sigh escaped his thin tips.

"At this moment, even your flip remarks are welcome." Remo noticed Smith's corpselike face and detected the furious pounding of his heart, which, as Remo listened, slowly calmed.

"What's going on, Smith? I'm gone a couple of months and this place is an armed camp."

"I'm in trouble," Smith said, opening his eyes. "Serious trouble."

"Is there any other kind?" Remo asked. And when Smith didn't react, he added: "The operation?"

"CURE is secure-I think. I'm being stalked by a killer."

"Anyone I know?" asked Remo coolly.

"I don't know who he is. But I'm the target of an assassin. Your showing up now may be the solution to my problem."

Remo's shoulders fell a little.

"I guess that answers my next question," he said. "If Chiun were here you wouldn't need me. Funny, I figured Chiun would have come here first thing."

"He was here," Smith admitted.

"Yeah? What did he say? Did he tell you where he was going? I'm trying to catch up with him."

"Is there a problem between the two of you?" Smith asked.

"Nothing I can't handle. So where is he?"

"In Baltimore. On assignment."

Remo's eyes narrowed. "For who?"

"Whom. For whom," Smith corrected absently.

"I asked a question, Smitty. I don't think I'm going to like the answer, but let's just get it over with, shall we?"

Smith sighed. "All right. I've rehired him."

"Unhire him."

"Believe me, I wish I could. I had no desire to see either of you ever again. Life has been peaceful these last weeks. Then this Harold Smith killer business, and then-"

"The which killer?"

"Let me rephrase that. Someone is killing men named Harold Smith all over the country. I believe he's after me."

"What is he doing, saving you for dessert?"

"Don't be smart, Remo. This is serious. I don't have many facts. Thirteen men named Harold Smith have been murdered since last November. All were over sixty years old. I have reason to suspect their killer is an old enemy from my past apparently someone who knows my name, my age, but not my current whereabouts. He is therefore attempting to kill every Harold Smith in my age group he can locate. It's only a matter of time before I'm next."

"Only you, Smitty, could upset someone so much he'd go to all this trouble to settle a score."

"Remo," Smith said levelly, "I could use your help."

"If you think I'm hiring back on, forget it. I'm back in town to find Chiun. Period. He's a big enough problem without my adding another."

"Then there is a problem," Smith said.

"I don't know," Remo admitted. "He's been acting strange, more so than usual. The other night he walked off. Left his steamer trunks and a note. Something about being an old sandal. I figured he had to come here. You mean he actually volunteered for work?"

"He didn't put it that way exactly, Remo. He said he owed me a year's service to replace the gold prepayment from last year."

"I'll give it back," Remo said hastily. "With interest."

"I suggested that, believe me. Chiun refused. He claimed he couldn't do it. He had to repay in services. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't hear of it. If you want my opinion, Remo, he sounded lonely."

"Great. Well, tell me where he is and I'll try to talk some sense into him. When we come back, I'll see what I can do about your problem. For old times' sake."

"Go to Baltimore, the penthouse of the Lafayette Building. He's guarding a metallurgist named Ferris D'Orr. It's too complicated to explain now, but it's important to America that D'Orr and his titanium nebulizer do not fall into unfriendly hands."

"Titanium nebulizer?" said Remo. Then he held up his hands. "Forget I asked. I don't want to know. I just want to find Chiun and talk sense into him.

"Were you happy in Sinanju, Remo?"

Remo paused. "Yeah, kinda. I wasn't unhappy. I was still settling in. It takes some getting used to."

"Married yet?"

"No, that's another problem I'm having. Chiun is trying to stall the wedding.

"Marriage is a wonderful thing, Remo. I recommend it. "

"How is Mrs. Smith?"

"She's fine. Lonely. I haven't been home in a week. If this killer finds me, I want him to find me at Folcroft, not at home where my wife could be hurt."

"Sounds like you're hurting too, Smitty."

"I am, Remo. I feel like a big piece of my life was replaced, only to be ripped out just when I was adjusting to being whole."

"Yeah. I feel that way about Mah-Li. Funny how that is. What do you want me to do about these guards?"

"They're not dead?"

"No, I just put them to sleep. They'll recover."

"I'll handle this as an internal problem. I must keep the police out of this. Entirely."

"Your call, Smitty. Catch you later."

The flight from New York's La Guardia Airport to Baltimore, Maryland, was advertised as fifty-five rninutes. It was accurate if you didn't include the thirty-six-minute boarding delay, the approximately two hours in which the plane sat on the runway with its air conditioner off to save fuel and increase passenger irritability, and the forty-two minutes stacked up over Baltimore-Washington Airport.

It was dawn before Remo Williams found himself in downtown Baltimore, and he considered himself lucky. The other passengers were delayed another five hours while their luggage was rerouted from Atlanta, where it had accidentally been sent. Remo had no luggage.

A cab deposited Remo in front of the Lafayette Building. He tried to pay the driver.

"What's this?" the cabby demanded.

"Look, I don't have any American money on me, all right? Don't give me a hard time."

"Don't give ine a hard time. The fare is twenty-three eighty-seven. Pay up."

"This is a genuine gold coin. It's worth over four hundred dollars."

The cabby took the coin in his hand and hefted it. "It's heavy like real gold," he said slowly.

"It is real gold," said Remo wearily, wishing he had thought to ask Smith for a cash loan. Remo had made his way from Seoul, South Korea, to the United States on a handful of ounce-weight gold ingots he had taken from the treasure house of Sinanju. He overpaid outrageously for every fare, but because he paid in gold, the true item of value behind the world's paper-money supply, he had received nothing but a hard time. People were willing to accept cash, checks, or credit cards, but not gold. Not the one thing that was of true value in the world.

"If it's real gold, why are you overpaying me by over three hundred and fifty dollars?" the cabdriver wanted to know.

"I'd appreciate change," Remo said sweetly, and he smiled.

"Nothing doing," said the cabby, who was beginning to suspect the gold was genuine. Especially after he bit into the yellow ingot and saw toothmarks. A get cash or I keep the whole thing."

"Then keep the whole thing," Remo said in a pleasant tone while he rubbed a finger against the lock on the driver's side. A wisp of smoke came out of the lock aperture. When the driver next tried to open the door, he would find he couldn't. He would learn that the door would have to be replaced, but that it could not be removed for replacement without dismantling the taxi.

It wasn't as good as exact change, Remo thought as he took the elevator to the penthouse, but true satisfaction is without price. He decided to write that down somewhere. It would be the first thing he wrote in his histories of Sinanju when he got around to writing them.

The elevator took Remo to the penthouse floor. When the doors opened, he found himself confronted by an unusual sight.

A man stood facing the elevator, as if he had expected visitors. The man was short, very short. He wore sunglasses. A bowler hat sat on his head, canted at a rakish angle. The hat was green, Christmas-package green. So was the tiny man's neat jacket. The pants, however; were canary yellow, as was the man's shirt. He wore a purple tie. Silk.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Ferris Wheel."

"D'Orr," the voice said, pitched very low.

"Which door?" asked Remo, looking around. The little man followed him.

"Not door. Not wheel. D'Orr. Ferris D'Orr," the little man said, his voice rising to a squeaky pitch. "Honestly, Remo, have you so soon lost command of your native tongue?"

Remo spun as if on a pivot. He looked closer. The little man beamed, and Remo noticed for the first time the wisps of white hair on the little man's face and the Korean sandals peeping out from the trouser cuffs.

Remo lifted the green hat and exposed a balding head with tufts of white hair over the ears.

"Chiun?"

The Master of Sinanju removed his sunglasses and did a delicate pirouette to show off his new American attire.

"Brooks Brothers," said Chiun happily. "Only the best. How do I look?"

"Like a lemon-lime sherbet," Remo said, hardly believing his eyes.

"You must have searched far and wide to find me," said Chiun with satisfaction. "You must have covered all of Asia before you knew I was not there. Africa's sands must have known your implacable step before that continent, too, was eliminated from your arduous search. Lo, in the generations to come, future Masters will sing of how Remo the Unfair shunned his bride, telling her she was no longer important, bade his villagers a tearful farewell, and said to the heavens, 'I must go, though it take me to the end of my days, and seek out the Master who made me whole, and throw myself at his feet to beg his forgiveness. Though it take me decades, and Chiun the Great spit upon me when I find him, I will do this gladly, for I owe him everything.' "

The Master of Sinanju stepped back a pace to allow his pupil groveling room.

Remo frowned, putting his hands on his hips.

"You left a trail a pig could follow. A blind pig," he said.

The countenance of the Master of Sinanju assumed a hurt expression.

"You are not here to grovel?"

"I'm here to take you back. To Sinanju."

"Impossible," said the Master of Sinanju, turning on his beef. "I am under contract."

"We'll break it. You've done it before."

"I have a new appreciation for America." Chiun said.

"You didn't ever have an old appreciation for America. It was a barbarian land, remember? It was a land of round-eyed whites who smelled of beef and pork fat and had feet so big it was a miracle they could walk."

"I was younger when I said those things. Much younger. I have grown in wisdom since those long-ago days."

"Since last week?"

"What's that racket?" asked Ferris D'Orr, poking his head out of his laboratory.

"Who's he?" asked Remo peevishly.

"That is Ferris. Do not mind him. He always gets irritable when he is around metals. He is a metallurgist, poor fellow."

"Is that the kidnapper?" asked Ferris, looking at Remo. "No, this is my son. The son I told you about. Allow me to present Remo to you. He is in condoms. And toilets."

Ferris looked Remo up and down. "Keep him away from me, then. I don't swing that way."

"Can we have a little privacy, please?" Remo asked.

"Sure thing," said Ferris D'Orr, hanging a Do Not Disturb sign on the lab door and slamming it behind him.

"The treasure house?" Chiun asked low-voiced. "Did you lock it behind you?"

"Double-locked. I left Pullyang in charge."

"Pah! Better you had staked one of the village dogs at the door. A dog does not bray at lame jokes."

"What's eating you? Will you tell me that?"

Chiun reached into his breast pocket and extracted a red leather wallet "Look," he said.

Remo looked.

"A woman's wallet. So what?"

"It is a woman's?" asked Chiun, surprised. "I chose it because it was the most appealing in color."

"A man's wallet is never red. Black or brown. Never red."

"I almost bought a green one," Chiun said hopefully, with a silver clasp."

"Woman's,"

"Oh," said Chiun. "Then show me your wallet."

"I don't have one. I threw it away when I knew I wasn't coming back to America. Or so I thought."

"Then do not insult my fine American wallet if do not have one of your own. This will serve me well, for it carries something that is priceless."

"Gold?"

"Better than gold," said Chiun.

"Am I dreaming, or did you say better than gold?" The Master of Sinanjaa extracted a gold-colored plastic card from the otherwise empty wallet. "Behold." Remo took the card.

"American Express," he said. On the card was embossed the name M.O.S. Chiun. "M.O.S.?"

"Master of Sinanju," Chiun replied. "I wanted it to read 'Reigning Master of Sinanju,' in acknowledgment of your current status as subordinate Master, but there was not enough room on the card, so I had to settle."

"I didn't know I was supposed to be subordinate Master. Is that my title?"

"I just made it up," Chiun admitted. "But let me explain how this wonderful American invention works." Remo was about to say that he already knew, but realized that Chiun would go on anyway, so he shut his mouth to save time.

"Instead of money, you give this card to merchants in return for services."

"Oh really?" Remo said.

"Oh, I know that does not seem like much," said the Master of Sinanju, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But that is not the wondrous thing."

"What is?"

"They always give the card back."

"They always give-"

"Shhhh," said Chiun. "I do not want this to get out. Then everyone will go to Smith for one of these wondrous cards."

"Can't have that," Remo said.

"It is better than gold. You give a merchant gold and what happens?"

"He bites it to see if it's real," said Remo, thinking of the cabdriver who had brought him to this precious moment in life.

"Exactly. Because he has your gold. But unlike gold, merchants in America do not get to keep this card. They put it through crude machines or copy down the unnecessary numbers which for some reason are on my wondrous card. And then they give it back. Some of them even say thank you."

"Imagine that. They must not know how you're putting one over on them."

The Master of Sinanju drew himself up haughtily. "I am doing nothing of the kind, Remo. I give them the card. They give it back. How am I at fault if the merchants of America are so feeble-witted that they cheat themselves at every turn?"

"You have a point there, Little Father. But maybe it isn't what you think."

"Do you know something I do not, Remo?"

"Let's go see Smith. He'll explain it."

"I cannot. I am here on important service to the Generous Emperor Smith, Dispenser of American Express."

"Last week he was Mad Harold."

"He has changed, Remo. Surely you noticed."

"He did look grayer, at that."

"He has many burdens. Burdens whiten the hair." And the Master of Sinanju made a point of stroking his snowy beard.

"I was talking about his face."

"He is not ill?" squeaked Chiun.

"He has problems. But never mind that now. What's this about your returning to service?"

"It is true. I am bound to serve Generous Harold another year."

"Mah-Li will give up the gold."

"But then what will you do?" asked Chiun. "You can't marry her without the gold for a dowry. It is contrary to Sinanju law. Unless you wish to break the engagement. If you wish to break the engagement, I will be disappointed, but I will try to bear up. Yes, if that is what you must do, let us sit down now and write to the poor child and inform her of your decision while there is still strength in our breaking hearts."

"Nothing doing," Remo said flatly. "We're getting married. As for the dowry, I'll go earn a new dowry for her."

"That is forbidden," said Chiun. "The husband does not provide the dowry. It is as foolish as the American merchants returning the wonder card."

"I'm not going back to Sinanju without you, Chiun. You know that."

"Maybe Smith has a place for you in the organization," said Chiun thoughtfully. "I cannot guarantee this, but I will put in a good word for you, if that is your wish. I cannot promise you a magic card, for obviously only assassins with seniority get these, but perhaps there is such a thing as a silver card. Or a titanium card. I understand titanium is a very valuable metal in America."

"Forget it. I'm not working for Smith. Those days are gone."

"But their pleasantness lingers in the memory, does it not?" Chiun asked.

"Right," said Remo. "It does not."

Just then the elevator doors slid open.

"Expecting company?" Remo asked.

"Not such as these," said Chiun disdainfully.

The three men who gingerly stepped from the elevator cage wore goosedown jackets, stained bluejeans, and plastic baseball caps decorated with Confederate-flag decals. Their pores reeked of beer.

"We're lookin' for Ferris Wheel," said Boyce Barlow, pointing a double-barreled shotgun at Remo and Chiun. "Try a carnival," said Remo.

"Do you mean Ferris D'Orr?" asked Chiun.

"Yeah, that's him," said Boyce Barlow. "Trot him out, hear?"

"I am not deaf," said the Master of Sinanju. "One moment."

"What are you doing?" Remo asked Chiun, who was calmly walking to the door with the Do Not Disturb sign on it. Chiun knocked.

"What?" Ferris D'Orr called angrily.

"A moment of your time, O metallurgical one." Ferris stuck his head out the door.

"Are these the bandits who attempted to kidnap you?"

"Yeow!" said Ferris, slamming the door.

"I think that was a yes," Remo pointed out.

"I think it was too," said Chiun, walking up to the three men. "Watch this," he added under his breath. Remo leaned back against the wall. He yawned, The Master of Sinnnju stopped before the three men. They pointed rifles at his head. The Master of Sinanju smiled and bowed from the waist, first unbuttoning his coat.

The three men looked uncertain. When they did not bow in return, the Master of Sinanju kicked them in their shins, producing the required bowing action.

With fingers so fast they blurred, the Master of Sinanju sent the first two fingers on his right hand into the eyes of the man on the end.

The man dropped his rifle. His hands started to reach for his eyes, but he fell backward before completing the motion.

Boyce Barlow heard his cousin Luke fall over. The closing elevator doors vised his head. Then he heard Bud, on the other side, do the same. Boyce tightened down on the double triggers of his shotgun. He stopped squeezing because, suddenly, two fingers pushed his eyes back into his brain with such force that the pressure cracked his skull. That crack was the last sound Boyce Barlow ever heard.

Chiun returned to Remo's side, dry-washing his hands. "I've never seen you do moves like that before, Little Father," Remo said.

"I learned them from Moe Stooge," said Chiun happily.

"Never heard of him."

"Really, Remo, he is very famous in America. He is one of the Stooge Brothers. They are excellent entertainers. Possibly brilliant. I would like to visit them as soon as possible. I may be able to help them refine some of their moves."

"No chance," said Remo.

"You would deny me such a tiny request?"

"I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but they all died years ago."

Chiun trembled. "Curly too?"

"He was the first to go."

The Master of Sinanju bowed his head in sorrow. "The good die young," he said.

Remo went over to the three bodies and tested their carotid arteries.

"They're dead," he said.

"Of, course. They are the vicious would-be kidnappers of Ferris the Metallurgist. They did not deserve to live. What are you doing?"

"Checking them for identification."

"Why bother? The dead have no need of their names."

"But Smith might. Nothing. Their wallets are empty."

"What color?" asked Chiun.

"This one's black."

"I will take it, seeing he does not need it any longer."

"Okay, let's go," said Remo, straightening.

"Where?"

"Back to Smith. We're going to get you unhired."

"But, Remo, what about Ferris?"

"Smith sent you to protect him from these guys. He's protected. Permanently. Let's go."

"I cannot. My duty is to stand guard until my emperor orders otherwise," said Chiun.

"What's going on out there?" Ferris' frightened voice called out from behind the lab door.

"It is all right, Ferris. Your assailants have been vanquished by the awesome magnificence that is Sinanju."

"Are they dead?" asked Ferris, stepping carefully into the hall.

"Of course," said Chiun, dragging the bodies into the elevator.

"Is he always like this?" Ferris asked Remo. "Usually he makes me dispose of the bodies," Remo said. "Watch. He'll say something about being too old to lug them onto the elevator."

But when the Master of Sinanju continued piling the three Barlow cousins onto the elevator in silence, Remo was forced to ask, "Need any help, Little Father?"

"I am fine," said Chiun. "Do not trouble yourself. I will dispose of these carrion and return momentarily."

"I don't get it," Remo said in a shocked voice. "He never handles the bodies himself."

"They pile up a lot, huh?" asked Ferris D'Orr.

"Sometimes they're hip-deep."

In the alley behind the Lafayette Building, the Master of Sinayju tossed the Barlow cousins into the building dumpster. Seeing that it was nearly full, he stirred the garbage until the bodies were covered.

Chiun did not know who these men were and he did not care. Perhaps they were free-lance, possibly they worked for someone else. Smith would know. But if Smith identified them as the instigators, and not hirelings, then Chiun might be recalled to Folcroft, his mission accomplished.

The Master of Sinanju did not wish to be recalled to Folcroft, where Remo might convince Smith to release him from his contract. He did not wish that at all.

Chapter 18

They welcomed Konrad Blutsturz with the straight-arm salute of the past.

As one, they came to their feet in the great auditorium of Fortress Purity, their arms shooting out and up in perfectly stiff Nazi salutes, more like robots than men and women.

"Sieg Heil!" they shouted, as Konrad Blutsturz, Fuhrer of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama, sent his wheelchair buzzing down the aisle, beneath the swastika flags hanging in ordered rows. The wheelchair labored up the low inclined ramp to the podium like a wind-up toy that didn't quite work. The handicapped ramp was one of the first things Konrad Blutsturz had installed earlier in the day. By nightfall, every staircase in Fortress Purity would be replaced by a ramp.

Attired in a jet-black military shirt, Konrad Blutsturz Joined Ilsa, who stood waiting, microphone in hand, and faced the audience. A huge Nazi banner served as a backdrop.

He returned the salute and lifted the microphone slowly, soaking up the cheering like a thirsty man. For a moment he knew how Hitler had felt. For an instant he felt the thrill the true Fuhrer must have known. But then he looked hard into the faces of the crowd, these sons and daughters of Alabama and North Dakota and Ohio and Illinois, and made a disgusted noise low in his throat.

Hitler had spoken to a unified people. These were rabble. It was not the same at all. He let the noise of the crowd run its course and motioned them to be seated.

At a nod from him, Ilsa dropped to her knees so that no one sat higher than Konrad Blutsturz.

"A war is coming," he told the crowd, his dry voice rumbling over the public-address system. "A race war. You know it. I know it. Our beloved founder, Boyce Barlow, knew it. That is why he founded the White Aryan League. This is why he built Fortress Purity. That is why we have had to erect razor wire around our settlement and top it with electricity. Because the rest of America-mongrel America-resented our prophetic vision."

The crowd applauded.

"The Jews already control America. Everyone knows it. They control the media. They control Wall Street, and the corporations. If their power grows, they will control America the way they control Israel. If this goes on, we true, white, patriotic Americans will be displaced as the long-suffering Palestinians have been displaced. America will become the new Israel-an occupied land!" Konrad Blutsturz shouted, and the effort set him coughing.

Ilsa handed him a glass of water. He sipped.

"But this day may never come to pass," he went on.

The crowd cheered.

"It may never come because the inferior blacks will bring this proud nation to its knees before then. Look at the major cities of America. Once they were proud and white. Now they are dirty and black. Many people have come to these shores. Germans have come, and the English, and the French. Even the Polish. They have given to America. The blacks only take. They steal from our mouths by refusing to work. They live off welfare. Our taxes pay for their loud radios, their many children, their vile drugs. Now, the Jews are bad, but the blacks-they are like the kudzu weed you chop from the perimeter fence each day. The blacks, by their sheer numbers, are strangling this land."

"Down with the blacks!" the crowd roared, and Konrad Blutsturz had them. He grinned his skull-like grin.

"Keep it up," Ilsa whispered. "You've got them going good now."

"But the blacks are not organized," said Konrad Blutsturz, his voice cracking with exertion. "And the Jews are patient. There is a third enemy, the Orientals. They are the more immediate menace."

The crowd hissed. Some yelled "Gook" and "Slanteyes. "

"The Orientals combine the worst traits of the others. They are becoming as numerous as the blacks, but they are as crafty and avaricious as the Jews. You have seen them coming to these shores in increasing numbers. Even here in Huntsville, there are many. It does not matter whether they are Chinese, or Japanese, or Vietnamese, or any other 'ese.' They are all the same. You know it. I know it."

The crowd cheered the words of Konrad Blutsturz as other crowds had cheered the words of Adolf Hitler fifty years ago, because the words were the same and the crowd-like all mobs-was also the same.

"How is it," Konrad Blutsturz shouted, "that when America defeated the Japanese, the Japanese ended up with economic superiority?"

"They cheated," the crowd yelled.

"When the Vietnamese defeated the Americans in the last decade, the Vietnamese flocked to these shores, to steal the jobs that the Japanese industries did not already take, and buy up the homes that true Americans could no longer afford. These people are so unfair, they work two or three jobs. For every employed Vietnamese, there are three unemployed Americans!"

The crowd screamed its anguish at the injustice of the selfish Vietnamese immigrants.

"But the Orientals are not the worst. No," said Konrad Blutsturz in a low voice that forced the auditorium to listen very hard.

"The fourth group is the worst. We cannot recognize them by the color of their skins, or by their habits. Because they are chameleons, poisonous chameleons."

"I didn't know chameleons were poisonous," Ilsa whispered.

"Poisonous chameleons," Konrad Blutsturz repeated, ignoring the girl. "For they come in all sizes and shapes. They blend into our society unsuspected and unchallenged. You know them for what they are, the Smiths." Konrad Blutsturz hissed the word.

The crowd screeched its horror at the menace of the Smiths until the walls shook.

"You know that I have just returned from investigating the Smith menace firsthand. I have seen the evidence with my very eyes. The Smiths are as numerous as the blacks, more numerous than the Asians, and craftier than the Jews. I have fought them in unreported skirmishes. I have inflicted Aryan vengeance upon their seemingly white heads."

"Aryan vengeance," howled the members of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama.

"When the race war begins, it will be begun by the Smiths. Not the Jews, not the blacks, not the Asians, but by the Smiths. Have I not always said so?"

"Yes!"

"Did not Boyce Barlow, our founder, prophesy this?"

"Yes!"

"And it has come to pass!"

"No," the crowd protested.

"They have struck the first blow."

"No!"

"A cruel blow," said Konrad Blutsturz. "They have extinguished the pure flame that was Boyce Barlow." A low moan lifted from the audience. Faces contorted in pain, "And his cousins Luke and Bud."

The crowd was stricken. There were shouts for revenge and, amid them, cries for the heads of the agents of this atrocity.

"But fear not," Konrad Blutsturz went on. "We are not lost. I will lift up the banner they have dropped. I will carry on in their place. If you will have me.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Konrad Blutsturz let the howls of adoration continue until the crowd grew hoarse. He liked them better when they were hoarse. Their American twangs and drawls and nasal consonants offended his ears. It was a mongrel sound.

Finally Konrad Blutsturz waved for them to calm down.

The crowd quieted, their heads turned upward, their emotions spent. They believed. They believed in the purity of their skin color. They believed in the righteousness of their cause. And they believed in Konrad Blutsturz. They did not know they believed in a lie. Or that Konrad Biutsturz, who spoke so ringingly despite his many handicaps, believed none of it.

"The blow has been struck. We will not wait long to counterstrike. I have selected men among you to become my lieutenants. They will form you into squads. You will march, you will drill, and you will learn to use the weapons we have stockpiled in secret. Instead of hiding from an impure world, we will march into it. Instead of clinging to our vision of a white America inside Fortress Purity, we will expand Fortress Purity. Fortress Purity will become America!"

"Take back America! Take back America! America for Americans!" the crowd screamed.

"I will name those I have selected as my lieutenants. They will stand as I call out their names.

"Goetz, Gunther.

"Schoener, Karl.

"Stahl, Ernst.

"Gans, Ilsa."

"Does this mean I get to run the White Aryan League Hour?" Ilsa whispered in his ear.

Konrad Blutsturz hushed her.

A man jurnped up from the audience. He spoke in a Texas drawl.

"Hey! How come none of us good ol' boys are gettin' to be lieutenants?"

Konrad Blutsturz fixed his bright black eyes upon the protester. This was the moment be had expected. The crucial moment where his leadership would be tested. "Your name?"

"Jimmy-Joe. Jimmy-Joe Bleeker."

"Are you sure?"

"Huh?"

"Are you sure your name is Bleeker, I asked."

"What else would it be']?" Jimmy-Joe Bleeker sneered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose-fitting jearis.

"Are you sure your name isn't , . . Smith?"

"Naw, it ain't Smith."

"You sound like a Smith," suggested Konrad Blutsturz.

"He even looks a little like a Smith," chimed in Ilsa. "Around the eyes. A little."

"I ain't no Smith," said Jimmy-Joe Bleeker. "Smiths are poison."

Konrad Blutsturz snaked out his left hand. It glittered under the light, deformed and shining.

"There are Smiths everywhere. They are serpents in our paradise, lying, scheming, twisting facts. You have criticized the White Aryan League of America. I declare you a secret Smith, and ask the crowd to pronounce your sentence."

The crowd hesitated. All knew Jimmy-Joe Bleeker. He was a regular, one of the first members.

"Death," said Ilsa, turning her thumbs down. To Konrad. she added, "Can I kill him?"

"Death!" said the crowd.

"Aryan lieutenants, take this man out to the center of the compound and have him shot. This vile Smith will be an example to all Smiths of what is caming. Vengeance!"

"Aryan vengeance." screamed the crowd, and dragging the man, they broke open the great auditorium doors.

Ilsa ran after them. "I want to watch." she said.

Left alone on the podium, Konrad Blutsturz finished his glass of water greedily. Public speaking always wore his throat raw. He did not understand how Hitler had done it. The water accidentally went down the wrong way and he started choking. When the raw coughing fit subsided, he thought he could again taste the smoke of that night in Japan, almost forty years ago.

When the crack of rifle fire echoed back into the vast hall, he vowed again that Harold Smith would pay for his deeds on that long-ago night.

Konrad Blutsturz lay dreaming.

He dreamed he lay in bed with the hands on the clock across from him reading three minutes to midnight, but that wasn't what brought the panicky sweat to his chest. Caught between the clock hands was a severed gangrenous greenish-blue male organ. It looked familiar. And when he felt the smoothness between his legs, he knew the organ was his own. Konrad Blutsturz fumbled desperately for the clock, but it was out of reach. He tried to climb out of bed, but found he had no legs.

And then, like slicing scissors, the minute hand clicked to two minutes to midnight.

Konrad Blutsturz snapped awake from his nap. A dream, it had been a dream. But looking down at himself, he knew it was not a dream.

Reaching for his wheelchair, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position, and with simian agility, fumbled on the bluntness of his lost legs into the wheelchair, where he buckled himself in.

Konrad Blutsturz sent the wheelchair over to the balcony of his bedroom, which overlooked the grounds of Fortress Purity, and considered how easy it had been.

Below, soldiers of the White Aryan League goosestepped in their brown uniforms. They were soldiers in name only. They were the malcontents of America, the unemployed and unemployable. They were men without hope or direction, who nursed smoldering resentments against life. Boyce Barlow had given them a place to hide from the world, but Boyce Barlow was gone.

Now, under the guidance of good German stock, they were being welded into killing teams to fight the race war they believed would inevitably come. But Konrad Blutsturz believed in no coming race war. He believed even less in the scarlet-and-white flag that flew from every building in Fortress Purity.

The Third Reich was long dead. 3t lived on only in the nostalgic memories of very old men, and the sons of those men, whom he had recruited to the White Aryan League of America. It lived, too, in the muddled thinking of the morbid young, like Ilsa, who even now was commanding a squad of men with the crackle and fire of a seasoned boot-camp instructor.

Good riddance to the Third Reich, thought Konrad Blutsturz. In his youth it had promised him so much, and cost him so dearly.

Konrad Blutsturz had come to the United States in 1937, a young man of nineteen. He had come with a mandate-organize the German element for the coming war. He had believed in it all then, believed in the myth of German superiority, believed in the great Jewish conspiracy, and he had believed in Hitler.

It was Hitler himself who had plucked Konrad Blutsturz from a Hitler Youth group and given him his mission. "Go to America. Succeed, and you will be the Regent of America when their government is overthrown," Hitler had told him.

It had seemed so grandiose, in those days. So possible. Konrad Blutsturz spat over the railing a great greenish glob of expectorate at the memory of his naivete. In America, Konrad Blutsturz formed the Nazi Alliance. He did not build Bund camps or make inflammatary public speeches. He could have duplicated Fritz Kuhn's 1936 Madison Square Garden rally of twenty-two thousand people-if he didn't care about the quality of those people.

But he did care. Konrad Blutsturz did not want quantity. He wanted quality. German-Americans in the days before World War Two were much more American than they were German, which is to say, they were anti-Nazi, but there were those who believed in the New Germany, and Konrad Blutsturz had sought them out and organized them. They existed as a provisional government in waiting, waiting for the fall of Europe.

But Europe never fell. And Konrad Blutsturz' contacts with Berlin, over shoutwave radio relayed from the German Legation in Mexico City, grew less and less frequent.

After Germany was defeated, Konrad Blutsturz fled to Mexico. And after the Allies discovered certain documents in Berlin, they sent OSS agents on his trail. His Nazi Alliance had been quietly rounded up.

Alone, unsupported, Konrad Blutsturz fled into South America, and from there he was spirited to Japan, where he had intended to offer his services to the emperor.

Then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was as if the mighty fist of the Allies was following him into hell itself.

And into that hell came Harold Smith.

Konrad Blutsturz blotted out the memory. He remembered it in his dreams often enough. It was too painful to relive in his waking hours. It was enough that he had survived the hell of Tokyo. It was enough that he had returned to America at last.

Konrad Blutsturz had known Hitler himself, personally. It was that brief relationship that seemed to compel those he met. It moved the Germans of Argentina and Paraguay, as if somehow Hitler lived on through this broken wreck of a Nazi dupe. It had moved Ilsa, the American girl who was no more German-really German-than Svlvester Stallone.

And it had moved Boyce Barlow and his White Aryan League of America, who were desperate for the American dream and were willing to accept a nightmare in its place--just as long as they could call that nightmare their own.

It had been so easy.

When a day had passed and Boyce Barlow was not heard from, Herr Fuhrer Konrad Blutsturz assumed he and his cousins had gotten lost on the way to Baltimore.

When two days passed, he assumed that they had been captured, and ordered his specially equipped van gassed up for a quick escape. If the Barlows were in FBI hands, they would spill their guts for a warm beer.

When a third day came and went without an FBI raid on Fortress Purity, Konrad Blutsturz knew they were dead and had not talked.

And all they had lived for was now his.

Chapter 19

Ferris D'Orr's mother was crushed when he was christened at St. Andrew's Church in Dundalk, Maryland. She had wept on that first day when he went to Sunday school years later. At his First Communion, she was bitter, and at his Confirmation at the age of fourteen, she was inconsolable.

During the drive home, Mrs. Sophie D'Orr went on and on.

"Your father was a good man, God rest his soul," Mrs. D'Qrr said. "Don't get me wrong, he was good to me. The best."

"I know, Ma," Ferris said. He sat in the back seat, slipping lower and lower into the cushions with every word. He was too ashamed to sit up front with his mother.

"We loved each other." Mrs. D'Orr went on. "We couldn't help it. It was one of those things, a Catholic and a Jew. It happens. It happened to us."

Ferris D'Orr sank even lower in his seat. He hated it when his mother raised her voice. The louder she got, the more her accent showed. The other kids always made fun of him over that. She sounded like a cartoon German. It embarrassed him. He wished he had a lemon Coke right then. Lemon Cokes always made him feel better.

"So we married. That wasn't the hard part. But your father, and the priest who married us, got together. This priest said we could marry if we promised to raise the product of our union-that was the phrase that priest used, can you believe it-the product of our union in the faith. They called it that, too, the faith. Like there's no other."

"Ma, I like being a Catholic."

"What do you know? You don't know any other way. You're fourteen now and you don't know your maftir. You've never been to shul. I should have had you bar-mitzvahed. It's too late now."

"Ma, I don't want to be a Jew."

"You are a Jew. "

"I'm Catholic, Ma. I've just been confirmed."

"You can be bar-mitzvahed at any age. It is done. Ask your cousins. They will tell you how it is."

"Kikes," mumbled Ferris l under his breath, using a word he had picked up in Sunday school to describe his cousins on his mother's side. Other kids called him that sometimes. When they didn't call him Ferris Wheel. "What?"

"I'm thirsty."

"I'll buy you a lemon Coke. Will you promise to think about it if I buy you a lemon Coke?"

"No."

Later that night, his mother had taken him aside and patiently explained to Ferris what it meant to be a Jew. "Whether you want to accept it or not, Ferris my lamb, you are a Jew. Because being a Jew is not just being bar-mitzvahed and going to temple. It is not like some of your friends who go to church every Sunday and raise hell on the other six days of the week. Being Jewish is in the blood. It is a special responsibility to keep God's covenant. It is a heritage. You are Jewish by heritage, Catholic or not. Do you understand?"

"No," Ferris had told her. He didn't understand at all.

His mother tried to explain about the holocaust.

He had explained back how his friends sometimes taunted him because his mother was a Jew, and how some of them said that it was the Jews who killed Jesus.

His mother said that they were talking about the same idea. Good Jews had died in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany because of lies like those. For no other reason, six million good people had died. She showed him picture books of the ovens and the gas chambers.

Ferris had said that had all happened in the past, and he did not live in the past. "The Nazis are dead." he told her. "They don't exist anymore."

"It will not be the Nazis next time. It might not even be the Jews next time. This is why we must remember."

"You remember," Ferris said. "I wouldn't be a kike for a million dollars."

And his mother had slapped him, later apologizing for it with tears in her eyes.

"I only wanted you to understand. Someday you will understand, my Ferris."

All Ferris understood was that his mother wouldn't stop going on about what a mistake it was to let him be raised a Catholic, and that he never, never wanted to be Jewish.

When Ferris went off to Boston to college, he never looked back. He worked through the summer just so he didn't have to return to his mother's home and the relatives who were strangers to him.

When he graduated from MIT in three years instead of four, he didn't tell his mother, because he was ashamed to have her show up at the ceremony. And when he went looking for his first job, he made sure it was as far away from his hometown as possible.

Now Ferris D'Orr was an important scientist. His face was on the cover of Time magazine. He was being called a genius. In a recent speech the President of the United States had called him "the keystone of America's defense future."

But his mother wouldn't stop calling him.

"Don't answer that phone," Ferris D'Orr yelled. "This is a safe house. There's only one person in the world who would call me at a safe house."

"Who?" asked Remo Williams, who, out of boredom, was watching Ferris melt little blocks of metal into little puddles of metal. When the little puddles hardened, Ferris would melt them again. Over and over. Remo thought it was like watching paint dry, but Ferris didn't seem bored by the repetition. He actually became more excited.

"Never mind," said Ferris, remelting an inch-square block for the thirty-first time. By actual count. "Just don't answer it."

"It might be important," Remo said. "They keep ringing. "

"Not they, her. Only one person would keep ringing like that. Anyone else would figure out I'm not here. Not her. She'll keep ringing until I give up and answer."

Finally Remo picked up the phone because he didn't want to hear any complaints from Chiun. Not that Chiun had been complaining these last few days. In fact, he hadn't complained once, not once.

"Hello? Yes, he is," Remo said.

Remo turned to Ferris D'Orr. "It's for you. It's your mother."

"What did I tell you?" Ferris moaned. "Tell her I'm not here."

"She can hear you yelling," Remo said.

"She won't leave me alone," Ferris said. "She got the FBI on the phone and browbeat them into giving her this number. The combined efforts of the KGB and the Internal Revenue Service couldn't squeeze that information out of the FBI, but my mother did."

"He's very wrought up right now," Remo said into the phone. "No, he hasn't been kidnapped. No, ma'am, I wouldn't fib to you. Yes, ma'am, I'm one of his guards. I'm sure he'll be all right. Yes, ma'am, I will."

Remo hung up.

"What did she say?" Ferris asked.

"She said you should write her."

"I did, long ago. I wrote her off."

"That's not nice," said Remo, watching Ferris adjust his nebulizer. "What are you doing?"

"It's too complicated for a layman to understand."

"Try me," said Remo.

"I'm slagging this titanium block over and over again to see if fatigue sets in."

"I never get tired," said Remo.

"I meant the metal."

"Oh," said Remo.

At that moment the Master of Sinanju walked in. "What transpires?" he asked.

"Ferris is avoiding his mother," Remo said.

"For shame," said Chiun. "You call her this very moment."

"Nothing doing."

"Yon shouldn't have said that," Remo warned.

"What is the number?" Chiun asked.

"I forget. It's been so long."

The Master of Sinanju carried the phone over to Ferris D'Orr. He picked it up delicately and placed the receiver in the metallurgist's left hand. He inserted Ferris' right index finger into the rotary dial.

"I will, help," said Chiun. "As you begin to work this instrument, I am sure the number will come to you." It came to Ferris D'Orr suddenly, between the first friction burn from dialing 1 and the moment the Master of Sinanju inserted his finger in the 0-for-Operator hole.

"Hello, Ma?" Ferris said, sucking on his dialing finger. He did not sound happy. Chiun stepped back, beaming. He loved reunions. They reminded him of his beautiful American dramas.

Ferris D'Orr did not talk very long on the phone, but he did listen. Finally he said, "Bye, Ma," and hung up.

"Wasn't that nice?" asked Chiun.

"Yes, very," Remo agreed.

"I want you both to know two things," Ferris said, glowering at them. "One, I am not a momma's boy. Two, I am not-repeat not-Jewish."

"Who said you were?" Remo asked. "My mother. But she's crazy."

Remo and Chinn looked at one another. They shrugged. "Now, if you'll excuse me," Ferris said. "I have work to do."

Remo and Chiun left the room.

"You came all the way back to America for this?" Remo asked Chiun when they were out of earshot.

"Ferris is a genius," said Chiun. "An important genius. Guarding him is a sacred trust."

"What he does is fiddle with that machine of his and melt blocks of metal."

"Titanium," corrected Chiun.

"Does it matter?"

Chiun led Remo into the living room, where the big projection TV stood. Chiun settled onto the couch. Remo sat on the floor.

"You don't wish to sit with me?" Chiun asked.

"Couches are bad for the posture."

"Who says?" asked Chiun.

"You. Constantly."

"This one is different. It is exceptionally comfortable."

"I'll stick with the floor, thank you."

"You have that right," said Chiun in a vague voice.

"How long is this going to go on?" Remo asked after a pause.

"How long is what going to go on?"

"This guarding Ferris."

"Until Emperor Smith informs us otherwise."

"Informs you otherwise. I'm just a bored groupie. I told Mah-Li I'd be back in a week. It's almost that now."

The Master of Sinanju shrugged as if Mah-Li were of no consequence. "Then go. I am not keeping you."

"I told you I'm not going back without you."

"Then I would advise you to find work. I, who have work, will be employed for the next year. At least."

"I think we should talk to Smith about this," Remo said. "Together."

"There is nothing to talk about. I am under contract."

"I'm still trying to figure that one out. And why did you leave Sinanju at night? Without saying good-bye. Answer me that, Little Father."

"I was in a rush."

"What rush?"

"To make my flight."

"What flight? You practically hijacked your way across the Pacific."

"I did not wish to deprive Emperor Smith of one hour's worth of the allotted service due him. What if, in the absence of the Master of Sinanju, he were to be assassinated? Then I would have to break in a new emperor." Chino shook his aged head. "No, I am too old to break in a new emperor. Old, and unwanted."

"VVhat do you mean, unwanted?"

"I am unwanted by my villagers, and by you." Remo came to his feet.

"That's a low blow, Chiun. Would I be here right now if I didn't want you back'?"

"Guilt makes men do strange things. You do not want me. You want Mah-Li."

"I'm going to marry Mah-Li with your blessing, remember? You always wanted me to marry a Korean girl. It's been your obsession."

"Mah-Li does not want you," Chiun said. Remo's brows ran together.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, "How could you say that?"

"Has she written?"

"It's only been a few days, and she doesn't know where I am exactly. How could she write?"

"A worthy bride would write letters day and night, sending them hither and yon until they found you. Mah-Li is probably spending your gold even as we speak. "

"Fine. Let's go back and stop her."

"You go. I must guard Ferris."

"We got the guys who were after him. What are we guarding him against-unwanted calls from his Mother, for crying out loud?"

"Do not shout, Remo. It is unseemly. We never used to argue like this in the happier days."

"In the happier days we would argue all the time."

"Not like this," said Chiun, secretly pleased that Remo, in his anger, had admitted those days were indeed happier.

"No, you're right, not like this. In the old days, you would carp about me refusing to go hack to Sinanju with you and I would hold my ground to stay in America. Now you've managed to get it all twisted up. Only you, Chiun, only you."

"You are beginning to sound like Ferris," Chiun sniffed.

"Is that good or bad? You seem to like Ferris, for a white."

"Whites are not that bad. I am beginning to like whites, some of them. Whites appreciate talent. I feel appreciated in America."

"You are appreciated in Sinanju too, Little Father. I appreciate you. Mah-Li does too. She worships you."

"Then why did you both let me leave in the middle of the night with only three kimonos and one pair of sandals?"

"Because we didn't know you were going to pull a disappearing act!"

"You should have known. You should have seen the signs. They were everywhere."

"There are signs everywhere around here, anyway," Remo said, looking out the penthouse window in disgust. Below, the city of Baltimore lay, a mixture of old buildings and new skyscrapers. Nothing matched or harmonized. In the streets, automobiles sent exhaust fumes into the air. Remo could smell them even through the double-sealed windows.

Once America had been his home. Now he felt like a stranger here. He hadn't lived in Sinanju long enough to love it, but the only two people in the world he did love were of Sinanju. That was enough for a start. At least in Sinanju the rain was clean, and the only dirt was on the ground, where dirt belonged. With some improvements, Remo knew he could make Sinanju a paradise for Mah-Li, himself, and Chiun. If only he could convince the Master of Sinanju.

"A penny for your thoughts?" asked Chiun.

Remo was silent for several ticks of the clock before he turned to the Master of Sinanju. His voice was clear and steady, his dark eyes determined.

"I'm not an American anymore ," he said.

"So?"

"It's not fair that you do this to me. I did everything you wanted. I trained, I learned, and finally I gave you the last thing you wanted: settled in Sinanju. Now you do this to me."

"Do what?" Chiun said innocently.

"Pull the rug out from under me."

"You are standing on linoleum," observed Chiun.

"You know what I mean, dammit?" Remo was shouting. There were tears in his eyes now, tears of frustration. "I'm more Korean than white now."

"You are more Sinanju than white, never Korean."

"You forget. Mah-Li told me the story about Kojing and Kojong, the twin Masters of Sinanju. Their mother raised one of them secretly so their father wouldn't know he had twins and drown one of them in the bay. Both learned Sinanju, and Kojong went out into the outer world and was never seen again. You've always said I was part Korean, and I've always denied it. Now I don't. Kejong was my great-great-grandfather or something. This is why I learned Sinanju despite my whiteness. "

"Anyone would have learned as you did-with me as his teacher," said Chiun.

"Cut it out! You know that isn't true. We're part of the same bloodline. You found me, and you brought me back into the fold. It was a long, hard struggle and I fought you every step of the freaking way, but now I'm where I belong."

"In America."

"No, dammit. In Sinanju. Part of Sinanju. One with Sinanju. Why do you have to screw it up now? Why do you have to screw me up now?"

"Mah-Li told the story wrong," Chinn said huffily. "You are not the offspring of Kojong. The offspring of Kojong would not speak to me this way."

"Are you coming back to Sinanju or not? Last chance. Right now."

"No," said Chiun. "I am bound to Smith by my inviolate word."

"See you later, then," said Remo, leaving the room. The Master of Sinanju sank back into the sofa after Remo Williarns stomped out. It had been the most difficult conversation he had ever had with his pupil. Chinn had had to deny Remo. But the alternative was worse. If they returned to Sinanju, he would lose him entirely, and with him lose his mastery over his village. When that happened, Chiun knew he would lose all desire for living.

In America, they could be happy. Not in Sinanju. Never in Sinanju. Remo had been correct, in all ways. Despite his carping, the Master of Sinanju was not ready to allow Remo to become a Korean. Not yet. One day, perhaps, but not yet.

Chiun brushed a tear from the corner of his eve and turned on the TV. But even the Three Stooges did not bring laughter to his hazel eyes on this bitterest of afternoons.

Chapter 20

For a week, the world wondered what had become of Ferris D'Orr. The network reporters worked overtime to locate him, but without success. The FBI refused to comment. The CIA refused to comment. The Defense Department refused to comment. The President's press secretary, at a prime-time news conference called to settle the raging question of his whereabouts, assured the networks that Ferris D'Orr remained in safe hands.

Even after a well-known White House correspondent, citing his brother-in-law as an "anonymous source," claimed to know for a fact that Ferris D'Orr was a prisoner of an Iranian-backed Lebanese splinter group and failed to get the White House to produce Ferris on camera, no one had a clue.

"I know where he is," Herr Fuhrer Konrad Blutsturz said firmly, watching the news conference from his command-center bedroom at Fortress Purity.

"You do? Where?" asked Ilsa. She was stripping him of his silk dressing gown. His bionic left arm lay on a nearby table, where Ilsa had placed it.

"At the penthouse in Baltimore."

"They moved him. Everybody knows that," said Ilsa, pouring epsom salt into a pan of warm water. She dipped a facecloth into it and wrung the cloth until it was moist but not wet.

"They did not move him, Ilsa. Ah, that feels good. If they had moved him the networks would have found him. They found him once. The networks have no restrictions on them. They are free to ask questions, poke their noses into files and do investigatory work that would cause the ACLU to shut down any other investigative body, government or private. By now, they would have found a leak. Everything leaks. But they have found no leak. They have found no clue precisely because there is no new location. No one would believe they did not move Ferris D'Orr after his location was revealed on the seven o'clock news, but that is what they did."

"You sure? Lift, I want to get under your arm."

"If they had moved D'Orr," said Konrad Blutsturz, "they would have moved him immediately. Had they done so, Boyce Barlow would still be alive. Consider, the news of D'Orr's location broke on a Thursday night. The following morning, I sent Boyce to the safe house. It would have taken him most of the morning-probably longer, the way he gets lost-to find the safe house. By the time he got there, D'Orr would have been rnoved-if the FBI intended to move him. We never heard from Barlow, therefore he and his cousins are dead. Had he died storming an empty safe house, the incident would have made every news show. No doubt he was killed by the defenders of Ferris D'Orr, and the incident has been hushed up to conceal D'Orr's actual location-the one place no one would think of looking."

"That makes sense. Lower?"

"Always lower. You know what I like, Ilsa."

"So what do we do?"

"We go to Baltimore and get Ferris D'Orr and his nebulizer."

"Just the two of us?"

"We are Aryans. Together, we are equal to any challenge."

"I love it when you talk like that," Ilsa said meltingly. The flight reservations desk was apologetic.

"I'm sorry, sir. We have no flights leaving Baltimore-Washington Airport tonight. If you'd like to come back in the morning, I believe we'll be able to accommodate you. Or you could try one of the other carriers."

"I did try the other carriers," Remo Williams snarled. "You're my last hope. Why aren't there any flights available?"

"It's complicated."

"I've got all night," Remo said, drumming his fingers on the desk. The flight reservations clerk noticed that the data on his reservations terminal was jumping in time to the skinny man's finger drumming. He tapped the side of the computer to settle it down. It did not settle down. In fact, it got worse because the man in the black T-shirt drummed his fingers faster.

The clerk, who knew his terminal was jar-proof, couldn't imagine how the man's drumming fingers could cause that kind of on-screen disruption. It was an electrical phenomenon. How could the man's fingers be interrupting the electron flow to the screen?

He decided to answer the man's question despite strict company policy against doing so.

"The weather, sir."

"The sun is shining," Remo pointed out. Beyond the big windows, jetliners sat bathing in the dull winter sunshine.

"In Kansas City, I mean."

"I'm flying to New York City."

"I know, sir, but Kansas City is our airline's hub. All flights either originate, or terminate, or pass through Kansas City, and they're having a blizzard out there."

"Let me get this straight," Remo said slowly. "You don't have any flights because they're all in Kansas City?"

"I didn't say that, sir. I said our hub is snowbound at present. It should be dug out by morning."

"Isn't that one of your jets out by the gate?" Remo asked calmly.

"That's right, sir."

"Why not use it, then?"

"Can't. It's our Kansas City flight."

"We both know it's not going anywhere, so why not reroute it to New York?"

"Sorry, it's against company policy. All flights have to go through Kansas City."

The clerk noticed his on-screen data had all run together to form a luminous green blob that floated in the center of the black screen. Now, that was impossible.

"Baltimore and New York City are both on the east coast," Remo informed the clerk. "Do you mean that to fly from one to the other, I have to go through Kansas City, about a thousand miles out of the way?"

"It's the way we here at Winglight Airlines operate. It's actually more efficient that way."

"How is that possible?" Remo wanted to know.

"To save transportation costs and excise taxes, not to mention local fuel surcharge taxes, all our Jet-A fuel is stored in Kansas City. The extra fuel mileage is more than made up for by refueling in Kansas City exclusively."

"That explains your problem. What about the other carriers?"

"I think they just normally screwed up, sir. Deregulation, you know."

Remo looked at the man and stopped drumming his fingers. The on-screen data blob suddenly exploded like a fireworks display. When the little green sparks settled down, the clerk noticed that they had reformed into letters and numbers. He expended a sigh of relief. Then he looked closer. The letters and numbers were inexplicably backward.

By that time, the unhappy would-be passenger was gone.

Remo Williams had to wait an hour to use a pay phone. The pay phones at Baltimore-Washington Airport had lines in front of them that were longer than the ones at the reservation desks. But at least the phones worked when you got to them.

Remo called Dr. Harold W. Smith. He called collect. "Remo? What have you to report?"

"Nothing," said Remo. "I don't work for you, remember?"

"Yes, of course. But from what Chiun has been saying, I thought you were more or less unofficially back on the team."

"Forget what Chiun said. You should see him now. He's tricked out like some freaking Pee Wee Herman clone. Look, Smitty, I'm trying to get back to Sinanju, but I'm stuck in Baltimore. No flights are going out until morning, if ever. Can you swing something? Say, a helicopter?"

"No helicopter would carry you across the Pacific."

"I know that, Smitty. I just want to get out of Baltimore, okay?"

"Not okay. As you know, I'm responsible for allocating millions in taxpayers' dollars. I would be remiss in my responsibility if I used even a cent of it for nonoperational expenses. You are no longer a member of the organization. You admitted it. I'm sorry, I can't justify the cost of returning you to Korea."

"That's your answer?"

"Well, you could reconsider your decision to go. I have that matter we discussed. Someone is trying to kill me."

"I know how he feels," Remo said through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry, Remo," Smith said formally. "I just can't see it your way."

"Thanks a lot," Remo said, hanging up. Behind him, a long snaky line of waiting customers groaned with one voice.

"What's eating you?" Remo asked them.

"You broke the phone," said a bony woman.

Remo looked back. The receiver was a mush of plastic attached to the dial pad. "Oh, sorry," he said sheepishly.

"That's easy for you to say. You already made your call. "

"I said I was sorry."

At the other side of the terminal, Remo tried to rent a car. He was told in no uncertain terms that he could not have one.

"Give me two reasons," Remo said.

"One, they've all been rented. Two, we don't accept payment in alleged gold ingots. Please take this thing off my counter."

Remo pocketed the bar of metal.

"Do you have a credit card and identification?" the clerk asked.

"No. What if I did? You already told me you don't have any cars."

"True, but if you had a credit card we could fit you in in the rnorning."

"I can get a flight in the morning," Remo said. "I won't need a car then."

"The customer is always right," the clerk told Remo.

Remo decided to sit out the night in the airport cafeteria. It was mobbed. The fast-food restaurants were jammed too. Not that Remo would have eaten in one. His highly attuned nervous system would have shortcircuited with the ingestion of the smallest particle of hamburger or french fry.

"Ah, the hell with it," Remo muttered to himself, looking for a cab to take him back into Baltimore. "Even dealing with Chiun is better than this crap."

But there were no cabs to be had, either, and Remo had to walk all the way back to the city.

The Master of Sinanju did not sleep that night. He could not, try as he might. The pain was too great. Even now, his pupil was many thousands of miles away, flying back to Korea. In his heart of hearts, Chiun wished he, too, could fly back to Korea, back to the land of his childhood. True, there were many painful memories back in Sinanju, of his stern father, who trained him in the art of Sinanju, of his cruel wife and her unworthy relatives, and of the shame of having been left, at an old age, without a proper pupil to carry on the Sinanju traditions.

Remo had wiped away that shame. Remo had become the son Chiun had been cheated of having. In the early days Chiun had not expended any great effort on making Remo a fit assassin for CURE. Remo was white, and therefore inept. His unworthiness would cause him to reject the better portions of Sinanju training. And even when Chiun grew to respect Remo, he avoided getting to know the man. He was white and therefore doomed to eventual failure. There was no sense in getting friendly. Remo would only die.

And it had happened. Remo had died during a mission. But Chiun, sensing a change in Remo revived him. Remo had come back from the dead less white than he had been when he had lived. He had come back Sinanju.

It was then that Chiun knew destiny had delivered into his aged hands a greater future for the House of Sinanju than he had ever dreamed there would be. Delivered to Chiun the Disgraced, the old Master who should have retired but was stuck in a barbarian land so backward even the Great Wang had never known of it. Chiun understood he had the greatest Master, the avatar of Shiva, in his care.

Chiun had poured his heart and his love into the training of Remo Williams after that, and Remo had grown through the stages of Sinanju. Now he was a Master himself, tied to the village by bonds of tradition and honor.

Chiun would never have believed that when Remo finally agreed to settle in Sinanju, it would be the beginning of the greatest pain he would ever know: ignored by his ungrateful villagers, cast aside by Remo for a mere girl. All that he had worked for had turned to smoke.

And so, because he dared not admit his unhappiness, he had fled to America and tricked Harold Smith into another year's service, confident that Remo would follow him. And he had.

Yet now Remo was leaving again. He was actually returning to Sinanju, alone. Chiun would not see him again for a year, or longer.

The Master of Sinanju walked to a window. A clear full moon hung in the sky. Chiun wondered if that same moon shone down on the aircraft now carrying Remo back to Sinanju. Just the thought made him feel somehow closer to his pupil.

Chiun had gambled that Remo's love for him would be stronger than his love for Mah-Li. He had been wrong, and now he was prepared to pay the price-a year of separation.

Out in the hallway, the elevator door opened. Chiun cocked his head in the direction of the door.

A soft padding sounded on the carpet. It was not the heavy tread of American-shod feet, or the crush of bare feet. It was an eflortless gliding that only one pair of feet other than Chiun's could make.

The Master of Sinanju burst into the hallway in his sleeping kimono.

"Remo, my son! I knew you would return. You cannot live without me."

"My flight was canceled," Remo said sourly.

The Master of Sinanju looked stricken. Then he slammed the door in Remo's face like an offended spinster.

"I didn't mean it like that," Remo said exasperatedly. There was no answer from the other side.

"Look, I'll make you a deal," Remo called through the panel. "I'll stick around until this Ferris thing is over, then we'll talk to Smith and get this straightened out. Okay?"

The door opened slowly. Chiun stood framed in it, moonlight silvering his aged head. His face was impassive, and his hands folded into the sleeves of his sleeping kimono.

"Deal," he said, his face lighting up.

Chapter 21

Ilsa Gans sent the specially equipped van circling the block for the last time.

"It looks clear," she called back over her shoulder. Peering through the privacy glass, seeing but unseen, Konrad Blutsturz searched with avid eyes. There were no signs of guards in the lobby of the Lafavette Building, no obvious FBI agents posted an foot or in cars. No danger.

It was night, the perfect time. konrad Blutsturz decided everything was perfect.

"On the next pass," he told Ilsa, reaching down to unbolt his wheelchair restraints, "park."

Coming around the block, Ilsa looked for the open space she had picked out in the parailel-parking zone, the one with the spray-painted stick-figure-seated-on-a-half-circle-wheelchair-symbol-the universal sign of handicapped-only parking.

A blue Mercedes suddenly pulled ahead and cut her off.

"He took it!" Ilsa said suddenly.

"Who took what?"

"The space," Ilsa answered. "The handicapped space. That guy in the Mercedes just scooted right in. He knew I was going for that space."

"Is there another?" demanded Konrad Blutsturz anxiously.

"No," Ilsa said miserably. "That's the only one."

Konrad Blutsturz banged his hand on the armrest. "There is always only one," he yelled. "What is wrong with this country? Do they think we handicapped travel only one at a time?"

"What do I do?" Ilsa moaned.

"We must park here. Is there another space of any kind?"

"No, and even if there was, it wouldn't be wide enough to offload in."

"Ram the car, then."

"Okay," said Ilsa, turning the van around until its rear wheels rode up on the opposite sidewalk. She pointed the van at the rear of the Mercedes in the handicapped space. The driver was just stepping out.

Ilsa sent the van shooting forward.

The van hit the back of the car like a tank, which, being built of bulletproof materials, was what it really was. The van pushed into the parking slot.

The Mercedes lurched forward, throwing the driver off his feet. He picked himself off the ground, swearing. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"This is a handicapped space!" Ilsa yelled indignantly. "Are you handicapped?"

"It's the middle of the night, lady."

"They don't regrow their legs after dark, you know," said Ilsa, stepping out.

"I'm a lawyer, and I'm going to sue you for this!"

"He's making too much noise," Konrad Blutsturz said. "Kill him."

Ilsa reached for her Luger.

"No," hissed Konrad Bltststurz. "Quietly."

"Right," Ilsa said, extracting her swastika-shaped letter opener from the glove compartment. Its edges gleamed in the moonlight.

"Catch," said Ilsa.

The man caught it. In the throat. He went down clutching himself, his fingers splitting open where they touched the multiple blades. He writhed and gurgled in the gutter.

"That'll teach him," Ilsa said, opening the side of the van. "The inconsiderate bastard."

Konrad Blutsturz sent his motorized wheelchair onto the van's hydraulic lift. Ilsa grabbed the control levers and jerked it first one way, then the other. The steel platform, carrying Konrad Blutsturz, lifted out through the side door and settled to the street with a low hissing release of sound.

He sent the wheelchair scooting to the building entrance.

"Let's go." he called.

"What about this guy?" asked Ilsa.

"He looks Aryan. Put him out of his misery."

Ilsa placed the Luger against the man's forehead to smother the sound, said, "Nighty-night" sweetly, and fired once.

"Yuck! He splattered a little," Ilsa complained, looking at her formerly white blouse.

"You should never stand that close to your kills if you insist on being fussy. Come."

Ferris D'Orr lay dreaming. He dreamed that he was a gingerbread man. He had had that dream often as a child. He was a gingerbread man, and evil men who talked in funny voices were trying to cook him in a great big oven.

Ferris kept telling the men that they had the wrong person each time they pulled him from the oven and poked their fingers into his browning stomach that was decorated with huge M&M's.

"Put him in again. He's not done," they would say. And Ferris would shout the words that they refused to believe over and over again.

Ferris D'Orr woke up crying the words: "I'm not Jewish! I'm not Jewish!"

And for the first time, a voice answered his plea. It was a hoarse voice, an old voice, and through the hoarseness, Ferris recognized the guttural accents of his nightmares.

"Of course you are not," the voice said. "You are Ferris D'Orr, the brilliant metallurgist, and I am Konrad Blutsturz, here to enlist you in a great cause."

Light suddenly flared in the room and Ferris D'Orr saw the man who spoke. He was a hideous old man with a metal arm that clenched and unclenched nervously. It whirred like a dentist's drill as it worked. The man was in a wheelchair, his face leaning close to Ferris' own. Too close.

Ferris sat up suddenly, because as ugly as the man was, the red blanket that draped the stumps where the old man's legs stopped was uglier. In its center was the twisted cross of the Nazis.

The blond girl standing beside the old man also wore a swastika. It was on an armband circling her right arm, and the arm pointed a long-snouted pistol at his face.

"You must have great night vision," she said sweetly, to be able to see our colors in the dark."

Ferris D'Orr had only one thing to say, one word. The word was: "Momma!"

"Thank you far treating me, Little Father," Remo Williams said.

Chiun waved dismissively as he handed his American Express card to the restaurant cashier. Tonight his suit was maroon and gold. The tie was pink.

"You said you had not eaten," he said. "Now you have eaten."

The cashier took the credit card and filled out the charge slip. Then she placed both in the charge machine and ran the embossing handle back and forth with a loud chunking noise.

"Sign here, please," she told Chiun.

The Master of Sinanju took the proffered pen and signed with a flourish. He waited patiently. When the card was returned to him with the slip, he placed the card in his wallet and threw the slip into the nearest litter basket.

"Did you see that, Remo?" he asked once they were on the street. It was nearly four a.m. and there was not much traffic.

"Yes, I did, Little Father."

"I have been thinking," said Chiun. "I do not believe that even American merchants could be so foolish as to not realize I have not had to pay for their wares."

"Oh?"

"I think the card itself is not the wondrous thing after all. "

"No, then what is?"

"Why, my name, of course."

"Your name?"

"Yes, Chiun. See? Here is my name printed on this gold card. It says Chiun, my name. This is the magic thing, not the card. Obviously it is like the old seals of the Egyptians, intended to identify royal personages to commoners. When I show this card, they look for my name and see that they are dealing with the Master of Sinanju. Then they ask me to sign, using my signature for verification the way the Egyptian seals were once used. Thus, they do not ask for gold."

"It makes sense when you say it," said Remo good-naturedly.

"This means that America has finally learned to appreciate me. Smith must have told them. Yes, that is it. In the weeks when we were gone from his service, seeing that he no longer needed to keep our past employment with him secret, he has spread word of the good service that he formerly enjoyed from the Master of Sinanju. And subordinate Master, of course.'

"Of course," said Remo; hiding a grin. "By the way, what did Smith say about the bodies?"

"What bodies?"

"The three guys you eliminated, the kidnappers. Was Smith able to identify them?"

"He said something vague about their unimportance. I do not remember what."

"That's strange," said Remo. "Usually Smith's computers can identify anyone from fingerprints or dental records."

"I think these must have been special nonentities," said Chiun, hoping that Smith never found out about the bodies in the dumpster. "What difference would it make?"

"Knowing who they were might mean knowing if they were operating on their own or working for someone."

"Why do you bring this up?" asked Chum.

"I wonder if it was a good idea to leave Ferris alone."

"What harm is in it? Ferris is asleep, and Smith had obviously spread the word that he is protected by the Master of Sinanju. Our reputation does most of our work for us, you know."

Remo started to argue, but as he turned the corner he suddenly saw Ferris D'Orr.

Ferris was still asleep. But he was asleep in the arms of an old man in a wheelchair. The old man was being hoisted, wheelchair and all, into a waiting van. A blond girl in some kind of military uniform was working the lift. Remo recognized the titanium nebulizer rocking beside the wheelchair on the rising platform.

The blond slammed the side door closed and jumped for the driver's seat.

"They've got Ferris!" Remo said.

The van backed out of the space and barreled down the street.

Remo started after it and then noticed a man lying in the street beside a crumpled Mercedes that had been thrown up on the sidewalk.

"He's dead, Little Father," said Remo. Remo didn't notice that Chiun did not answer because Remo suddenly saw the shiny object embedded in the man's throat. He removed it, and found himself holding a steel-bladed swastika.

A car screeched to a stop beside Remo's crouching form.

"Hurry." a voice called from the car.

Remo got to his feet. There was no one behind the wheel. Remo lifted on tiptoe. His head barely topping the dashboard, the Master of Sinanju gestured frantically. The passenger door popped open.

"Quickly," Chiun said anxiously. "They are getting away."

Remo jumped in, and the car took off down the street, careening like a drunken tiger.

"Where did you learn to drive?" Remo asked.

"Back there," Chiun said.

"Back where?" asked Rerno. "Back where I picked you up."

Remo suddenly noticed the ignition had been popped. "Wait a minute. You mean you don't know how to drive!"

"What is to learn?" asked Chiun, lifting himself up out of the seat to better see over the steering wheel. "You point the car and it goes."

"Right," said Remo, grabbing the wheel with one hand. "I'll help you point."

"You might also help me with the brake," said Chiun as they took a corner on two wheels.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. But I cannot reach the pedal with my feet."

Remo shot out a foot and the car slowed and stopped, knocking over a mailbox.

Remo got out and jumped over the hood to the driver's side. "Scoot over," he said.

The Master of Sinanju folded his arms defiantly.

"If you will not let me drive, neither of us will drive. "

"Fine," said Remo. "Then you can be the one to tell Smith that you let Ferris get away."

Chiun slid over and Remo got behind the wheel. The car leapt forward.

"This would never have happened if you hadn't gotten hungry," scolded Chiun.

"Save it," said Remo, pushing the speedometer to sixty. He spotted the van pulling onto a major highway. Unfortunately, it was in the opposite lane. Remo sent the car over the lane divider and did a U-turn.

"I think that is against the rules," Chiun pointed out. Remo ignored him. He piloted the car onto the ramp and sent it hurtling after the van.

When the van came in sight a half-mile away; Remo accelerated. Streetlights flashed past. He overhauled the van with surprising ease. Even as the blond girl stuck her tongue out at them in defiance, she did not push the van past sixty-five.

Remo found out why when he tried to force the van off the road.

His left-front fender crumpled against the side of the lumbering vehicle. The van didn't even wobble. It was too heavy. Too heavy to speed and too heavy to stop. "This is not how it goes on TV," Chiun pointed out. Remo tried again, but this time the van came at him. Remo felt the steering wheel wrench under his fingers. He compensated against the twisting of the front wheels as they careened out of control. The steering wheel broke off in his hands.

Remo hit the brakes, and the car spun around like a big metal top, as the van continued on into the night. When the car stopped scraping sparks of the guardrail, Remo and Chiun got out of the wreck.

"You okay?" Remo asked Chiun.

Chiun straightened his pink tie. "Of course. How could you let them get away like that? I will be shamed before Emperor Smith."

"That thing was a tank," Remo said. "Let's find a pay phone."

"I am not reporting failure to Emperor Smith," said Chiun.

"You don't have to. I will."

"Done. Just be certain you place the blame where it belongs, on your shoulders. I told you I should have driven."

Ferris D'Orr woke up. He found himself lying on a fold-down cot inside a plush-lined van. He rubbed his stinging shoulder. The last thing he remembered was being in his bed in the penthouse and having a blond girl shoot something into his veins.

"Ughh," Ferris said.

A mechanical whirring attracted his attention. Ferris saw the old man, the one from his nightmare.

"Ah, Mr. D'Orr. I am glad you are awake."

"Where am I?"

"That does not matter. It should concern you only that we are nearly home."

"My home?"

"No, mine," said the old man. "We will be under way shortly, I assure you. My Ilsa is running an errand." A few minutes later, the blond girl jumped back behind the driver's seat.

"This is all I could find," she said breathlessly, waving a sheaf of papers. "Most of the pay phones were vandalized. Honestly, don't people respect property anymore?"

Konrad Blutsturz took the papers in his steel fist and riffled through them.

He shook his head. "There are so many of them," he said in disgust, and threw the papers to the floor.

One of them landed on Ferris' covers. He picked it up. It was a page of telephone listings. Ferris noticed the van's interior was littered with similar pages.

Oddly, there was one name on every page Smith. As the van got under way, Ferris D'Orr pulled the blanket over his head and shut his eyes until they hurt. He hoped that he would wake up back in his penthouse bedroom. But he didn't think that he would.

Chapter 22

Dr. Harold W. Smith awoke on the first ring.

He awoke the way he always did, like a light bulb switching on. He lay there for the briefest of instants. Recognizing that he was in his office at Folcroft Sanitarium, he got off the office couch. His wristwatch, which he wore even to bed, read 4:48 A.M. as he picked up the desk phone.

"Yes?" he said, his voice as astringent as lemons.

"Smitty? Remo."

"Yes, Remo," Smith said uninterestedly.

"We lost Ferris," Reme said abruptly.

Smith's hand tightened on the receiver. "What?"

Chiun's voice came on the line as Remo started to reply.

"Do not fear, Emperor. Ferris is not truly lost."

"Where is he?"

"We do not know."

"Then he is lost."

"No, merely misplaced. Here, Remo will explain his failure to you. Please do not punish him too severely."

"Thanks a lot, Chiun," Remo said away from the phone. Over the line, Smith heard them lapse into a tense exchange in Korean. He waited for the bickering to subside because he knew neither man would listen to him as long as they were arguing.

Finally Remo's voice came back on the phone.

"He was kidnapped, Smitty. We saw it happen, but the kidnappers got away. They were driving a van that must have been built of steel."

"Titanium," Chiun said in the background. "Mere steel would not have stopped us."

Remo went on after a tired sigh. "It was a girl, young, blond, with an older guy. Really old."

"But younger than me," Chiun chimed in. "will you let me finish?" Remo said.

Smith rolled his eyes heavenward. Even at this moment of failure, his immediate reaction was that it felt as if Remo and Chiun had never left CURE. His second was that he felt the walls were closing in.

"Anyway," Remo went on, "the old guy was in a wheelchair."

"We must have a bad connection," Smith said. "I thought you said one of the kidnappers was in a wheelchair. Repeat please."

"He was in a wheelchair. I know it sounds crazy, but there you go. Ferris has been kidnapped by a disabled person. They even rammed a car out of a handicapped parking space and killed the driver just to get the space. At least, that's how I read the scene."

"This doesn't make sense," Smith said.

"It gets worse. The guy who took the parking space had a shuriken lodged in his throat."

"A which?"

"A shuriken," Remo repeated. "It's a sharpened throwing star. Ninjas use them for killing."

"Ferris D'Orr was kidnapped by ninjas?"

"I don't think so," Remo said. "This wasn't the usual throwing star. It was shaped like a swastika, with the edges sharpened."

"Nazi ninjas kidnapped Ferris D'Orr? Is that what you're saying?" He reached for a bottle of extra-strength aspirin.

"No, I'm telling you what I saw and what I found. It's up to you to figure it out."

"Is there anything more?"

"We followed them. They ran us off the road and got away."

"Remo wouldn't let me drive," the voice of the Master of Sinanju came faintly through the receiver.

Dr. Harold W. Smith sat down in his leather chair wondering how he would explain this to the President. "I don't suppose you managed to get the van's license plate in all the excitement?" Smith asked acidly.

"No, I didn't get the van's license plate," Remo repeated. "I don't work for you, remember?"

"But I do and did," another voice said.

Smith bolted up in his chair. "What was that? What did Chiun say?"

"Here, you talk to him," Remo said.

"Master of Sinanju?" Smith said, hope rising in his heart.

"Never fear, Emperor, I have the numbers at my command. Truly, I have learned how important numbers are in American society. You have numbers for everything, for telephones, for houses, and for American Express. I saw the numbers of the offending vehicle."

"Read them to me, please," Dr. Smith said, booting up his CURE computers. In a walled-off section of Folcroft's basement, the powerful bank of computers kicked into silent life.

"DOC-183," said Chiun.

"What state?" said Smith, in putting the numbers into the search file.

"Moving fast," said Chiun.

"I mean what state was listed at the bottom of the license plate. There is always a state name."

"I did not notice," said Chiun unhappily. "Are states also important? I thought only numbers were. Should I remember the state the next time, or the numbers?"

"Both," said Smith wearily.

"Both. It will be extra work, but I will do this in your honor, O generous dispenser of American Express."

"This is important, Master of Sinanju. Do you, maybe, remember the first letter of the state name?"

"I think it began with A."

"Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, or Arkansas?" asked Smith, his fingers poised to key in the answer.

"Yes, one of those," Chiun said confidently.

Smith's fingers went limp. "Do you remember the color?"

"White, with red letters."

"Alabama," said Smith, inputting the name.

The computer searched its memory banks and generated an on-screen readout.

"The van is licensed to the White Aryan League of America and Alabama," Smith said. Then he thought about what he had said. "Put Remo on, please," Smith told Chiun.

"Smitty?" Rema said.

"That swastika means something. The van is registered to a neo-Nazi group."

"What would neo-Nazis want with Ferris D'Orr?"

"I can't imagine, but it's going to be up to you and Chiun to find out and get D'Orr back before anything happens to him."

"Talk to Chiun. I'm just along for the ride until this is over. Then I'm going back to Korea."

"Would you tell him, Remo?" Smith pleaded. "I always get a headache explaining even simple things to him."

Remo stopped the rented car in front of the big gates with the hand-carved pinewood sign, "FORTRESS PURITY," over them. He stuck his head out the window and called to the guard, who wore a brown uniform and a Sam Brawne belt.

"Excuse me," Remo called, "Would you mind opening up?"

The guard sauntered over to the car. Out of the corner of his mouth, Remo whispered to Chiun, "Remember, keep your sunglasses on."

The Master of Sinanju adjusted his wraparound sunglasses over his almond eyes and pulled his white bowler down over his forehead. It matched his suit. His tie and breast-pocket handkerchief were a matching gold.

"Don't worry, I am cool," he said, using a word he had picked up from television. Americans used it a lot. Therefore so would he.

"What do you want?" the guard asked suspiciously. "We want to sign up. Where's your recruiting offices?"

"We only let in the racially pure," the guard said, looking at Remo's brown eyes and dark complexion. "What's your name?"

"Remo."

"Doesn't sound very Aryan to me," the guard said slowly.

"Remo White. And this is my father."

"Chiun, Chiun Whiter," said the Master of Sinanju.

"Whiter? Whiter than what?" Remo whispered in Korean.

"Whiter than thou," answered Chiun, adjusting his tie.

"What lingo was that you're speaking?" demanded the guard in a suspicious voice.

"Aryan," said Remo. "We're the official Aryan tutors. By this time next month, you'll all be speaking it."

The guard looked at them a long time and finally made up his mind.

"Okay, you can go in. It's the big building with the flag. "

"They all have flags," said Chiun as they passed through the grounds. Around them, men in brown uniforms marched in formation, "Nice ones. It is good to see the Zingh again."

"The what?"

"The Zingh," said Chiun, pointing. "It is a lucky symbol. "

"Little Father," said Remo as they got out of the car and walked up the long ramp in front of the main building, "that's the swastika. It's the Nazi symbol. It's evil."

Chiun spat. "Do the Japanese own the sun because they put it on their flags'?" he asked. "Or the Americans the stars? The Zingh is older than Germany. In ancient days it was a proud sign. Remind me to tell you about it someday."

"Later. Right now, I want you to let me do all the talking. These people are Nazis. They may be dangerous."

"Nazis are not dangerous," said Chiun. "They are idiots."

"Dangerous idiots, then. Just let me do the talking. We've got to pass ourselves off as good clean Aryans.

"That will be impossible. Aryans never bathed and were blood-drinking barbarians."

The man at the registration desk did not ask them if they were Aryans. He did not even ask their names. He asked only how much they made per year.

Remo said, "I'm unemployed."

Chiun said, "More than you can imagine."

"Will you pay your friend's dues?" the man asked Chiun.

"Surely," said Chiun.

"That'll be twenty-five thousand dollars for the year. Prorated. "

"Do you take American Express?" Chiun asked casually.

"Everyone takes American Express," said the man, running Chiun's card through a credit-card machine. "I'll get you your uniforms," said the man. A moment later he was back with two cardboard boxes. He handed them to Remo.

"These should fit you both. You bunk in the Siegfried Barracks. "

On the way out the door, Chiun opened his box. When he saw the contents, he made a disgusted face and threw the box into a trash barrel.

"We'll need that to blend in-" Remo said.

"When you wear a uniform," Chiun pointed out, "you surrender your very soul to the rules of others. Surrender nothing to these people, Remo, or they will own you.'

"How else are we going to blend in with these people?" asked Remo.

"Sinanju does not blend in with others," said Chiun. "others blend in with Sinanju."

"Uh-oh, trouble," Ilsa Gans said, looking out the window of Konrad Blutsturz' office.

"What is it, Ilsa?" Konrad Blutsturz said absently. He pored over the blueprints that lay in profusion on his desk. With one eye, he watched Ilsa's rear end as she bent over to look more closely at whatever interested her. It was a nice rear end, very round.

"Remember those two men? The ones who chased us in Baltimore?"

"Government agents. Bunglers, no doubt."

"Well, they're here."

Konrad Blutsturz looked up. He hit the operating switch and his chair spun out from behind the desk and joined Ilsa at the window.

Below, a tall man in chinos and a T-shirt walked to one of the barracks, carrying a White Aryan League regulation uniform across one arm. A smaller man in white walked beside him, looking around curiously.

"Have them killed. I am busy. The doctor will be here shortly, and I must attend to many details."

"Oh, goody."

"Remember to use our expendable people."

"They're not as good as your lieutenants. They always screw up."

"Then use more of them. Soon we will have no need for any of them anymore. For soon I will walk like other men. And do the other things erect men do."

"I like the way you said that-erect."

Remo had given up trying to fit into his brown uniform when someone knocked at the door of the barracks room he and Chiun had been assigned.

"What?" asked Remo, realizing for the first time that Chiun had thrown out the unifonn meant for him and that he had wasted twenty minutes trying to fit into a child's size.

"First duty," a voice said. "Report to the shooting range."

"I am not touching a firearm," Chiun said firmly. "Nor will you."

"Maybe we can fake it." said Remo.

They found the front door of the firing range locked and deserted.

"Maybe there's a side door," said Remo.

There was a small one. The words "Firing Range" were scrawled on a sheet of blue-lined paper torn from a loose-leaf notebook and taped to the door.

"I guess this is it," Remo said.

The door clicked shut behind them and there was no light.

"This doesn't smell right," Remo said.

"Gunpowder," said Chiun, wrinkling his nose. "It never does."

"I mean this setup. I think it's exactly that."

They felt their way along a wall in the darkness. Remo sensed a great open space to his right, and beyond that there was some movement and the faint smell of human beings, but it was muted, as if intercepted by a barrier.

When the lights suddenly snapped on in the building, Remo saw the black silhouette targets of the firing range. They were not in front of them. They were on the wall directly behind them.

At the far end of the building, men in brown uniforms stood behind the glass ports of firing stations. They hefted rifles to their shoulders and pointed them, "Is this a form of initiation?" asked Chiun.

"No, it's a form of slaughter. And we're the objects." The rifles started cracking, sharp spiteful cracks. Behind Remo and Chiun white holes were punched into the black targets, and the air around them vibrated with the sounds of high-velocity slugs.

"Weaver Pattern, Little Father," Remo said.

"Agreed," said Chiun.

Remo moved toward the soldiers of the White Aryan League in a straight line. The Master of Sinanju took a parallel course. Abruptly Chiun cut across the path of Remo's trajectory, and Remo slipped behind him in a similar, but opposite diagonal movement.

To the soldiers working their rifles, it looked as if Remo and Chiun were panicking in all directions. That was the idea of the Sinanju Weaver Pattern. Each man ran a broken line, but it was an intersecting broken line, weaving across one another's paths. It had been originally devised as a form of attack against archers at the time of Darius of Persia.

As Chiun had explained it to Remo years ago, a man running toward an assailant presented a static target that grew larger the closer he came to the attacker. A man running side to side presented a confusing target. But two men running a Weaver Pattern were confusion upon confusion, because an archer always picked the largest target. He would always fire when the two running men crossed paths to form a converging double mark. But by the time he loosed his arrow, the two men were running in diverging paths.

It had worked against arrows. It worked against bullets, which were faster than arrows, but also smaller, and easier to avoid because they required more precise aiming.

There were five riflemen. By the time they realized they could not pick their targets individually, Remo and Chiun had cleared half the space toward them.

The marksmen switched tactics and started a murderous crossfire. But Remo and Chiun were already too close to them for that and they had to revert to individual targeting.

It was too late for individual action as well.

One rifleman sighted on Remo, waiting until his chest tilled his field of vision. He squeezed the trigger. Slowly, because that gave the cleanest shot.

He felt his weapon kick against his shoulder. He didn't feel it discharge. Nor did he feel the butt of the rifle, pushed by Remo's open palm, tear his shoulder muscles loose. The nerves had been severed and no pain signals were transmitted. The rifle clattered to the floor, and the gunman clutched his limp arm stupidly.

Remo took him out with a short chop to the neck and turned on another soldier, who was swinging his rifle around.

Remo stopped, folded his arms across his chest, and said, "Tell you what, pal. I'll give you one freebie shot."

The soldier fired. The bullet went where it was supposed to go, but strangely, his target did not fall or even grab at his solar plexus. The soldier brought his weapon up to his shoulder again, but by then it was too late.

Remo scolded, "I said one shot. You're out." He jellied the man's face.

Remo stepped over the falling body to reach Chiun, but the Master of Sinanju needed no help. He stood over the twisting form of a soldier whose legs no longer worked. Two others had Chiun between them. They kept trying to bring their rifle muzzles to bear on the Master of Sinanju, but each time they lifted their weapons, Chiun swatted them down like a child fighting off broom handles.

"I'd give it up if I were you," Remo told them. "You're only going to prolong the agony."

"Silence. Remo," said the Master of Sinanju, suddenly making the barrels fly up instead of down. "Wheee!"

The two soldiers refused to give up. One shot was all they needed, but they couldn't keep their rifles trained on where a bullet would do the most good long enough to pull the trigger. One started to blubber uncontrollably.

When the Master of Sinanju grew tired of his sport, he grasped the rifle muzzles. The action was brief, but firm, and the soldiers never knew that Chiun had squeezed the muzzles shut.

"I am tired of this," announced Chiun, and he walked away with taunting unconcern.

The soldiers couldn't believe their good fortune. Sighting down their weapons, they fired in unison. The blowback shattered the receiving mechanisms and sent metal and wood shrapnel into the faces of the guards. They dropped, still clutching their useless weapons, like toy soldiers. Which is what they really were.

"That was excellent shooting practice," said Chiun. "How many did you get?"

"Two," Remo said.

"Three," said Chiun. "I win."

"No, I think we both lose. They're onto us."

"So much for blending in."

Chapter 23

They had taken Ferris D'Orr from the van still huddled in the cot. Soldiers did that. Soldiers in brown uniforms with the red Nazi armbands.

Ferris had peeked as they carried him into the big main building. It was dark. He was in some kind of compound, surrounded by guards and a high fence. There were many soldiers, and many buildings. Nazi flags flew from every roof. It looked like the photos of those places his mother used to harp about places like Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen-places he knew couldn't possibly exist on American soil.

"Oh, my God," Ferris said under his breath. "I'm in an extermination camp."

They took him into a homey dining room, and the blond, Ilsa, stripped the blanket back and offered her hand.

"We're here," she called.

Ferris refused to get up. He wouldn't let go of the blanket either. He clutched one corner of it in his hand.

"Come on," Ilsa said sweetly, "Get up."

"Perhaps Mr. D'Orr would like to freshen up," said the guttural voice of Ferris' nightmares. "A shower, perhaps?"

"No way!" screamed Ferris D'Orr. "I know what you people mean by showers."

"He is frightened after his long journey," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Let me speak with him, You start the oven."

"I'm not Jewish!" Ferris said, jumping to his feet.

The old man laughed. "You already told us that. Ilsa is merely going to start dinner. Do you have a preference?"

"Anything," said Ferris D'Orr, "as long as it's ham, pork roast, or pork chops."

"Any of those, Ilsa," the old man called as the girl left the room. "Come, sit by my side. You are a most peculiar young man, but then, you are a genius. All geniuses are peculiar."

"I want to go home," Ferris said, sitting in the chair with the same gingerly resignation of a death-row inmate settling into the electric chair. He suddenly, desperately, yearned for a lemon Coke, but they hadn't made them in years.

"Do not be frightened. You will be here only a short time. I need your expertise. And your nebulizer."

"It's yours. Just put me on a bus."

"Soon, within the week. Allow me to show you my plans."

Ferris watched as the old man unrolled a set of blueprints.

"Some of the parts are very delicate, as you can see, but we have the molds. Can your nebulizer cast such tiny parts?"

Ferris gave the blueprints a quick glance. "Easily. Can I go now?"

"After these parts are made and assembled."

"What are they going to be assembled into?"

"Me," said Konrad Blutsturz. "They are going to be assembled into me."

"But there are enough parts here to build a baby tank."

"Exactly."

All during that feverish night they brought in the molds and the chunks and billets of titanium. It was good-quality titanium. Ferris recognized the Titanic Titanium Technologies stamp on a few of the sections. They made Ferris melt the pieces into molds. When they were done, they had him weld the parts into mechanisms. The brown-suited soldiers took the finished components into the next room. Once, when the door opened wide enough, Ferris saw that it was an operating amphitheater.

He remembered his mother's stories of the grisly Nazi surgeries performed on conscious patients. Once he had seen in a book a photograph of two Nazi doctors. They stood with stupid pride over a sheet-covered body.

The body's legs stuck out from below the sheets and there wasn't enough flesh on the bones to satisfy a rat. Ferris D'Orr shuddered. He didn't know what he had become enmeshed in, but he knew that it was evil. And he understood for the first time why his mother was so determined to remember the holocaust.

It was happening again. Here, in America. And Ferris was a part of it.

"What's this all about?" Ferris asked Ilsa after he had finished casting the largest pieces of the mounting for a sicklelike blade of steel.

"It's about cleansing America," she said matter-of-factly. "Of what?"

"Jews, blacks, Asians, and icky people like that. Smiths, too. "

"Smiths?" asked Ferris, remembering the telephone-directory pages.

"Yes, they're worse than Jews or the others, much worse. A Smith put Herr Fuhrer Blutsturz into a wheelchair. But you will lift him out."

Ferris understood another thing. Hatred did not discriminate. All his life he had hidden his heritage from the world, half out of false shame and half out of fear. The evil that haunted his dreams had found him anyway. There was no escape from hatred.

"No one is safe," Ferris said.

"What, sweet thing?"

Ferris D'Orr stood up and shut off the nebulizer. A billet, beginning to liquefy, suddenly froze in its mold, only half-formed.

"That one's not done," Ilsa said.

"It is done," Ferris said firmly. "It's all done." He kicked over the nebulizer. It hit the floor with a mushy crack, and the projector tube bent. A panel popped off one side.

"Hey! Why'd you do that?"

"Because," said Ferris D'Orr proudly, "it's my historic duty. I am a Jew."

Ilsa made a face. "Oooh, too bad. We were going to let you live."

Konrad Blutsturz was beside himself. He raged. He flopped on the operating table. The doctors, frightened, tried to hold him down. It was a critical moment. "Herr Fuhrer, restrain yourself," the head surgeon pleaded. "If this is true, there is nothing we can do."

"He went bananas." Ilsa moaned, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I didn't know he was going to do anything crazy. How was I to know?"

"I must walk. I must."

"We may be able to proceed," the head surgeon said. Behind him, on a series of cork panels, the blueprints for the new Konrad Blutsturz were pinned up with thumbtacks. "We cannot stop. We have gone too far. We must proceed."

"And I must walk," said Konrad Blutsturz.

"We are taking stock of the unfinished components, Herr Fuhrer," the head surgeon said. "If necessary, we will build the incomplete portions of the mechanisms from aluminum or steel. Most of the critical titanium parts have been formed."

"The legs?" demanded Konrad Blutsturz. "They are being assembled now."

"Are they complete?"

"Nearly. Let me finish attaching the arm."

"Finish it, and bring that man to me."

"What man?"

"The traitor, D'Orr."

"Gotcha," said Ilsa.

The doctors had opened up the stump that was Konrad Blutsturz' left arm and inserted a titanium coupling into the bone marrow, as they had done with both leg stumps. The old steel hand lay in a corner. In its place they were attaching the bluish jointed arm that ended in a fully articulated hand. It possessed four fingers and that ultimate symbol of humanity, an opposable thumb. "No pain?" asked the doctor.

"This is a moment of rebirth," said Konrad Blutsturz. "The pain of birth is the pain of life. It is to be savored, not endured."

"I could put you under, if the local anesthetic is not enough."

"Only to stand erect will ease the pain. Only to take the throat of the man who put me in this position will be enough."

Ilsa brought in Ferris D'Orr at gunpoint.

Konrad Blutsturz had only one question: "Why?"

"I am the son of a Jew."

"And for that you would cheat me of my dream? Fool. I meant you no harm."

"Your kind has seared the conscience of the world."

"Fool! We Nazis did not hate the Jews, or anyone else. It was a political hatred. It was not real, not true. The Jews were just a focusing point, a scapegoat to rouse Germany out of the hell of inflation and defeat after the First World War. Had the Reich triumphed, we would have abolished the death camps. There would have been no need for them. We would have pardoned the Jews."

"And who would have pardoned you?" asked Ferris D'Orr.

"So you have placed yourself in this jeopardy because you wish to avoid a repetition of your holocaust. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Ilsa, make him kneel. On my left side, please."

Ilsa forced Ferris D'Orr to his knees and pulled back his hair until his eyes were stretched open.

Ferris D'Orr stared at the blue metal arm lying next to him. Parts of it he recognized; he had molded them. "The first years were the worst," intoned Konrad Blutsturz, his words as distantly angry as far thunder. "I could not move. I was in an iron coffin staring at the ceiling. I wanted to die, but they would not let me die. Later, I would not let myself die. I would not die because I wanted to kill."

The titanium hand clicked into a fist. Then it opened. It moved soundlessly, with a near-human animation that was as repulsively fascinating as watching a spider eat.

"I dreamed of this moment, Harold Smith." Konrad Blutsturz spoke to the ceiling. The operating lights blazed down upon his unformed body.

"Ilsa, place Smith's neck in my new hand. I wish to feel its strength."

"Smith?" Ilsa asked blankly.

"Our prisoner."

"Oh." Ilsa obediently pushed Ferris D'Orr's head down onto the operating table.

The blue robot hand clenched Ferris' neck, digging in. Ferris D'Orr clutched at the edge of the steel operating table. He pushed against it. But his body would not move. The hand held his neck, his spine, his life. There was no escape. His breath caught and came hard.

"Did you think you could escape me, Harold Smith? No? Yes, you thought I was dead."

Ferris D'Orr choked, his face purpling.

"I was not dead. I was in hell, but I was not dead. I lived only to hold your neck in my one strong hand, Harold Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz, not looking at the struggling man in his hand, but at the ceiling, as he did in the early days when he could not move, lying in the iron lung.

Ferris D'Orr clawed at the unyielding stainless-steel table, and when that did no good, he clawed at the arm that acted with smooth, unfeeling life-the arm of titanium that he had helped to make. He clawed the way they had clawed the walls in the death camps, after the doors were shut and the gas was pumped in through the shower nozzles.

The others looked away. Except Ilsa. She bent down to get a better look at Ferris' blood-gorged face.

"Do their tongues always stick out like this?" she asked.

"Do you feel fear. Harold Smith?" Konrad Blutsturz' voice ground lower. "Anger? Remorse?"

But Ferris D'Orr did not feel anything. There was a sudden taste in his throat that he thought must be blood, but oddly, it tasted like lemon Coke. Then he was dead.

"I think you can let go now," Ilsa said.

The body of Ferris D'Orr slipped to the antiseptic floor in a heap of inert flesh.

"He is dead?" Konrad Blutsturz asked, his eyes clearing.

"Yeh," said Ilsa. "I'll have someone get rid of the body. Imagine that, a Jew named Smith."

"Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz, and the rage came into his eyes again.

Ilsa sponged the blood off his titanium hand and went out to see if the two new recruits were dead yet.

The new recruits were not dead. There was no sign of them on the firing range. Instead, five White Aryan League soldiers lay in contorted positions.

One of them, his legs shattered, still lived.

"What happened?" Ilsa asked, kneeling at his side.

"They were superhuman. Bullets could not touch them. We tried. We truly did." His voice congealed on itself.

"How could you fail? You are an Aryan. They are mongrels."

The soldier uttered a final gurgle and his head lolled to one side. Ilsa stood up numbly.

Ilsa Gans had always believed in Aryan supremacy. She had first learned it from her parents, who had come from Germany after the war because living in America was better than suffering in a broken and divided land.

She had met Konrad Blutsturz in Argentina, on a family vacation. Her parents always vacationed in Argentina, where they felt free to speak of the old Germany and of the Reich that was now ashes. They and their friends told bitter stories of failure and shattered hopes. It seemed so boring. But Konrad Blutsturz had actually met Hitler. Konrad Blutsturz made it come alive for her.

Even in a wheelchair, he was a giant. Ilsa had thought so at age eight, and the next year, and every vacation after that.

One year, Konrad Blutsturz had asked her to stay on. Her parents were at first apprehensive, even horrified. There was a scene. In the name of the Reich, Konrad Blutsturz had commanded them to release their daughter to him. And they had refused.

Konrad Blutsturz had come into her bedroom the night before she was to leave Argentina, and sadly, with grandfatherly patience, explained to Ilsa, then sixteen, that her parents were dead.

Ilsa had no words. The shock was too great, and to fill the silence Konrad Blutsturz had explained that the Jews had killed her parents, Jews who chose to persecute the vanquished soldiers of Germany.

"We'll get them," Konrad Blutsturz had promised. "And their leader, the evil one incarnate."

"His name is Smith, Harold Smith."

"Is he a Jew?"

"He is worse than a Jew. He is a Smith."

Ilsa became his nurse, his confidante, and the only one he would allow to tend him. She learned to hate the Jews, the blacks, and the other inferior races. When Konrad decided to return to America to seek out Smith, Ilsa had gone along willingly. By that time, he had taught her to kill.

Just as he had taught them all to kill. He had instilled in the White Aryan League the confidence of racial superiority. Even the ones who weren't exactly Aryan. And he had passed out enough rifles to equalize their racial shortcomings.

Yet five crack White Arvan League soldiers armed with rifles had been killed by only two non-Aryans. There were security cameras built into the ceilings of every Fortress Purity building. Ilsa got a stepladder and used it to collect the videotapes of the day.

As she walked across the darkened compound, her brow puckered as she recollected of Konrad Blutsturz' words in the operating room. He had said that the Jews were really not inferior. Perhaps it was stress that made him say those things. After all, he had called the metallurgist Ferris D'Orr by the name of Harold Smith. Sometimes Ilsa worried about her mentor. The strain was becoming great. They had to get to Smith soon, while Herr Fuhrer's mind was whole.

Ilsa had no time to wonder further because across the compound she saw the two new recruits, Remo and Chiun, prowling through the Fortress Purity parking lot.

They were looking for something.

"This is it, Little Father," the taller one said. "Same van, same color and license plate."

"Next time I will remember the state too," the shorter one said. Ilsa thought his accent was peculiar.

She started to draw the Luger that was always holstered at the small of her back, but then she remembered the five high-powered rifles that lay uselessly beside the bodies of the trained soldicrs.

Ilsa Gans hurried on. Whoever these two were, the videotapes would show how dangerous they really were.

Chapter 24

"No one has attempted to kill us in several hours," the Master of Sinanju said.

"The van is empty," said Remo.

"Of course. It is for transportation, not storage."

Remo closed the van door. He hadn't expected to find anything inside, but discovering the van was a final confirmation that they were in the right place.

"Ferris has to be around here," Remo said.

"In the big building," said Chiun. "Where something important transpires."

"What makes you say that?" said Remo.

"Important personages are always to be found in the largest buildings. That is why they are large. Do emperors live in huts or hovels? Even Smith, who claims not to be an emperor, although he is, lives in a fortress."

"Smith lives near a golf course," Remo said. "He only works at Folcroft."

"An emperor lives within himself. Wherever he is, he is home."

"And what makes you think something is going on in the main building'? This place is like a ghost town."

"Exactly," Chiun said. "No one has tried to kill us in several hours. Obviously, they are preoccupied."

"Maybe they're afraid of us?"

"We only killed five. Whoever commands here would not quake when but five soldiers fall. Commanders do not feel fear until their elite guard has fallen. It is the way of such men."

"I didn't notice this before," said Remo slowly.

"Notice what?"

"The design on the side of the van, the repeating one. It's a series of swastikas hooked together like a chain. "

"The Zingh," Chiun corrected. "I must tell you about that."

"On the way," said Remo. "Let's try the big building."

"An excellent choice," said Chiun. He had taken off his sunglasses now that the sun had fallen behind the hills. "The Zingh is older than Germany, older than the Greeks. The Indians knew of it."

"American Indians?"

"They, too. But I refer to the Indians of the East, the true Indians, the Hindus. Their Lord Buddha wore this symbol tattooed to his body as a sign of his goodness."

"Really?"

"Yes, the Zingh was a lucky sign in olden days. Although not so lucky for some."

"I detect a legend coming on," Remo said.

"Once, a Master of Sinanju was in service to a caliph of India," Chiun recited. "This particular caliph was having problems with the priests of his province. They objected to his taxes or something. I do not remember because their offense is not the point of this story. And so the caliph sent the Master, whose name was Kik, to slay the priests."

"For not paying their taxes. Just like that?"

"Merely because priests wrap themselves in holy words, that does not make them holy. Or even less mortal. The priests, hearing of the Master of Sinanju coming to their temple, were beside themselves with trepidation. They knew they were powerless against the Master of Sinanju. They could not fight him. They could not defend their soft bodies from his blows. They could not reason with him, for they spoke not his language. In their fear, they sought a charm to ward off the Master's attack."

"The Zingh," asked Remo.

"The very same. They knew that their Lord Buddha anointed his largeness with this very symbol, and so with pigments they anointed their bodies with this emblem of luck and goodness, trusting that the Master Kik would perceive their good intentions and spare them."

"You make the Zingh sound like the old peace symbol hippies used to wear."

"No, that is the Urg. Another thing altogether. The Zingh is more like that funny yellow circle people wear with the dots for eyes and the insipid smirk."

Remo looked puzzled. "A smile button? The swastika was the Hindu version of a smile button?"

"The Zingh. Exactly," said Chiun. "And so when the Master of Sinanju stood outside the gate of this temple, he called the priests out to face his wrath. And the priests came, stripped to their loincloths, their bodies anointed with the Zingh, and their fat bellies quaking in fear, and the Master of Sinanju flew upon them, chop, chop, chop, and in a twinkling they fell dead."

"The Master of Sinanju did not recognize the Zingh, huh?"

"Oh, he recognized it," Chiun replied cheerfully, "but he did not know it as the Zingh, but as the Korean Buk, the symbol of storm and lightning and combat. You see, to a Hindu it meant 'Have a nice day,' but to a Korean it meant 'I challenge you to fight to the death.' And so the fat-bellied priests died."

"And the lesson?"

"There is none."

"Really," said Remo, "no lesson? I don't think I've ever heard a Sinanju legend that didn't come with a lesson attached to it."

"That is because this is not a lesson legend, but a humorous legend. Masters of equal ranks use them to pass the hours. Now that you are a full Master, I may tell you other such legends. But remember, these are not stories to tell the villagers or others. These are between Masters, to be appreciated by Masters only. To tell such lessons to villagers is to diminish the solemnity and dignity of the Sinanju histories."

"That last part sounds like a lesson to me."

"That is because you are new to full Masterhood," said Chiun, chuckling.

When Remo did not chuckle back, Chiun asked what was wrong. They were approaching the long ramp that led to the main building's entrance.

"This place is wrong, Little Father."

"It is ugly, yes, I will agree to that."

"It shouldn't exist. Not here in America, not ever."

"Soldiers are as numerous as ants. You step on one anthill and they build another elsewhere. What can you do?"

"These people aren't soldiers," said Remo. "They're racists."

"No!" said Chiun, shocked. He had heard the word spoken in very disapproving tones by white newscasters many times on television. "Racist?"

Remo nodded grimly. "This place is a racist paradise."

"Racism is despicable. It is a plague among the inferior races, especially sub-Koreans. Why do Americans not stamp out these foul racists?"

"Because these people are Americans too. They claim the same rights as other Americans, and they use those rights to preach hatred against other Americans."

"If thev are Americans as you say, then why do they fly the Zingh flag of Germany?" asked Chiun. They had come to the door of the main building.

"They think Nazi Germany had the right idea about some things. Or maybe they just like the losing side. Most of these people also think the fall of the Confederacy was the end of civilization. I don't know, Little Father. None of it makes any sense to me either."

Remo found the double doors locked. Because he wanted to continue his discussion with Chiun, he knocked instead of breaking the lock with his hands.

Chiun asked, "Then why do they not live in Germany?"

"It's hard to explain," said Remo, waiting patiently. "They think they are the only true Americans, and that everyone else is inferior."

"Everyone else?"

"Mostly blacks and Jews and members of other religions they don't like."

"Koreans too? That is hard to believe. I have lately found Americans to be very enlightened people."

"You could ask him," said Remo as the door opened and a square-faced wan with a beet-red complexion and brushcut hair glared at them.

"You are both out of uniform," he said. And then, noticing Chiun, he asked Remo, "What's he doing here?"

"We're taking a poll," said Remo. "It's a word-association poll. We'll say a word and you say the first thing that comes into your pointy head. Ready? Start. Chinese."

"Scum."

"See," said Remo. "You try, Little Father."

"Japanese," said Chiun.

"Sneaky."

"Vietnamese."

"Sneakier. "

"Actually," said Chiun, "they are more dirty than sneaky, but you are close." Turning to Remo, the Master of Sinanju demanded, "How can you call this intelligent and true American a racist? He got two out of three correct."

"Ask him about Koreans," Remo said.

Chiun addressed the man. "Koreans."

"Worse than Japs. Stupider, too."

Chiun puffed out his cheeks in indignation.

"Racist," he said loudly. "Foul despicable round-eye racist. You are like all stupid whites. Ignorant."

The man suddenly pointed a handgun at the Master of Sinanju's angry face.

"I don't like being called names."

Chiun said to Remo, "He is truly ignorant, isn't he?"

"I don't think he knows who you are. Why don't you tell him?"

"I am the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said proudly. "Currently I am in disguise."

"What's that mean?"

"It means I am a Korean, possibly the most awesome and merciful creature you could ever imagine."

"You make yourself sound perfect." The man sneered, cocking his revolver. "Well, this gun makes me perfect."

"By what reasoning do you claim that?" asked Chiun.

"Because I can shoot off your gook head for what you called me."

"No, all that proves is that a gun, correctly aimed, can kill. Everyone knows that. It has nothing to do with your alleged perfection. It proves nothing."

"Good-bye, gook," said the man, pulling the trigger.

"Good-bye, racist," said Chiun, his open palm batting upward. It struck the muzzle of the pistol a precise quarter-second before the hammer fell, and because exactly a quarter-second after Chiun struck it the pistol was pointed up into the soft underside of the man's jaw, the bullet mushroomed against the man's tongue and the top of his head geysered a spray of blood and confused thoughts.

Remo and Chiun stepped past him.

"Let us find Ferris quickly so that we may he gone from this nest of inferior racists," said Chiun. He was unhappy because Remo had proven that there were Americans who were not as enlightened as Chiun had claimed.

Ilsa Gans ran the videotapes simultaneously on three monitors. The videos covered three angles, one head-high and the others from the ceiling. Each one told the same story, and the story was that the two spies who called themselves Remo and Chiun were invincible.

Ilsa watched them intently. The overhead films showed clearly why the five soldiers had been confused. First, the two men ran faster than the camera could record. Ilsa set the VCR for slow motion, but even then they were just slow-moving blurs. The blurs looked like they were running through a crossfire of water pistols. The bullets were real, though. Ilsa saw the walls behind them collect dusty bullet pocks.

The men were superhuman, both of them. They were more superhuman than Konrad Blutsturz, who Ilsa thought possessed superhuman will and drive. But the Fuhrer's superiority was that of a man painstakingly overcoming great odds. These men seemed to be routinely superhuman, as if it were as normal as walking or breathing.

Ilsa watched the tapes over and over with glowing eyes. The taller one's movements were strangely exciting, like a tiger slinking through the jungle, only this man slinked at high speed. The play of his lean muscles and the flash of his limbs, even from the overhead views, held Ilsa spellbound.

A quick glimpse of his face, handsome, even cruel in a slight way, made her heart skip a beat. It was as if the eyes could see her, even though his eyes were only a videotape image. Those eyes made Ilsa feel like she was prey. She shivered deliciously.

Ilsa forced herself to stop watching. She pulled the tapes and went running to the Fortress Purity auditorium, now being used as the operating amphitheater. Ilsa burst in breathlessly.

They were wheeling Konrad Blutsturz out on a hospital gurney.

"Oh no," she moaned.

"Ilsa, it is finished," Konrad Blutsturz said, his face a ghastly gray hue.

"But you're not walking. You're not walking. It didn't work?"

The head surgeon interjected himself.

"We won't know for several days. We were able to repair the nebulizer. All the parts are in place, but the surgical openings we made in Herr Fuhrer's stumps must heal first."

"We've got to get out of here before then," Ilsa pleaded.

"Out? Why, Ilsa?" asked the pitiful face of Konrad Blutsturz.

"Those new recruits. They didn't die at the rifle range. They killed our brave Aryan soldiers like they were children. They aren't human. Look at these tapes."

"Bring the tapes to my bedroom."

"Herr Fuhrer," the doctor began, "you must not exert yourself."

"Hush! Ilsa knows danger. Come. Ilsa."

In the bedroom, Konrad Blutsturz was laid on a specially reinforced iron bed. Six hulking soldiers handled him. He was covered by sheets. The sheets draped a complete human form.

It excited Ilsa to think that he was whole at last, but she quickly loaded the first tape and, after Konrad Blutsturz had dismissed the others, they watched it together.

After they had seen all three tapes, Konrad Blutsturz spoke.

"You are right, my Ilsa. They are a great danger. And I am too weak to face them just yet."

"I'll bring the van around."

"No. There still may be a way. Remember my plan to invite the Harold Smiths of America to Fortress Purity? I have just now thought of a way to test the feasibility of that plan and to rid ourselves of all of the people who stand in our way."

"Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Call a meeting in the auditorium immediately. Everyone must attend. Tell them I will make a great announcement. The doctors, too. We do not need them anymore."

"Okay. Are you sure you're up to it? You're supposed to rest."

"My fury will give me strength. Do this, Ilsa."

"Look at this, Little Father," said Remo. He pointed to a painting on the wall. They were in an office they had found. Two guards had attempted to stop them in the corridor but Chiun had taken their guns and, after learning that they knew nothing of Ferris D'Orr, spoke to them very quietly on the evils of racism. He held their hands to keep their attention. Sometimes he squeezed to emphasize key points.

By the time the Master of Sinanju was finished lecturing them, the two guards were on their knees nodding in furious agreement.

Chiun had locked them in the next room, where they were collaborating on a paper extolling the superiority of the Korean people especially those hailing from the fishing village of Sinanju. Chiun had told them he would collect it on the way out.

On the wall where Remo pointed was a portrait of the old man in the wheelchair they had seen kidnapping Ferris D'Orr in Baltimore.

"Another clue," said Chiun. "Does this mean we are closer to Ferris?"

"Probably," said Remo. Hearing footsteps coming down the hall, he glided to the door. "Someone coming," he said.

"Probably another racist," spat Chiun.

Remo caught the person as he entered. The he was a she.

"Oh!" said Ilsa Gans, struggling in Remo's arms.

When her struggles only caused the arms to tighten around her, she looked into the face of her captor. "Oh!" she said again. There was fear in her voice, but an undertone of pleasure too.

"It's the blond girl from Baltimore," Remo told Chiun.

"Where's Ferris?" he asked her.

"Somewhere," Ilsa said. His eves, close up, were brown and very large. They looked as warm as polished wood. For some reason, that made her tingle.

"I want an answer." Remo warned.

"I'll give you everything you want. Just squeeze me harder. "

"Damn," said Remo, suddenly thinking of Mah-Li waiting for him back in Sinanju. "Here, you take her, Little Father," and he sent Ilsa spinning across the room.

Chiun plucked her wrist, bringing her to a skidding stop.

"Oohh, you're some kind of icky Oriental," Ilsa cried, looking at the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun released her wrist disdainfully.

"And you are some kind of icky racist," he said. "I am losing my faith in American enlightenment, Remo." Remo pushed Ilsa into a leather chair and towered over her.

"Answers," he said, pointing to the wall portrait. "Who's he?"

"Herr Fuhrer Blutsturz. He is a great man."

"That's open to discussion. He's in charge here?"

"Until you got here," Ilsa said meltingly. She was staring at Remo's belt buckle hungrily. "There's something I must tell you. It's very important."

"Shoot," Remo said.

"I'm a virgin. I've been saving myself for someone else, but you can have me if you want."

Remo groaned inwardly. Women always reacted like this. It was some kind of animal magnetism generated by Sinanju rhythms. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed the effect he had on women. Usually it was a bother turning on the airline stewardesses or secretaries he happened to encounter. Sometimes Remo could use it to his advantage. A little Sinanju sexual stimulation could be a quick interrogation technique. But that was in the past, before Mah-Li.

"I want some answers," Remo said. "Not until I get what I want."

Remo grabbed Ilsa by an earlobe. He squeezed. Ilsa screeched. Her eyes watered.

"Get your mind onto business. Why did you and this Fuhrer what's-his-name-Bloodsucker-kidnap Ferris D'Orr?"

"Blutsturz," Ilsa moaned. "We needed his nebulizer."

"For what?"

"To make Herr Fuhrer walk. He has been in a wheelchair since the war. The creepy Jews did it."

"He's lucky they didn't do worse," said Remo, noticing Ilsa's Nazi armband.

"We needed the nebulizer to rebuild him in titanium. It was important. We tried to kill the Smiths one by one, but there were too many."

"What Smiths? You were talking about the Jews."

"Harold Smith is the leader of the global Jewish conspiracy."

"Harold Smith?" asked Remo.

"He was the evil one who destroyed Herr Fuhrer's magnificent Aryan physique. During the war. We've been trying to locate him for years."

Chiun sidled up to Remo and whispered, "Would that Smith be our Smith?"

Remo shook his head doubtfully. "There are zillions of Smiths."

"That is too many," said Chiun.

"Where's Ferris?" Remo asked Ilsa.

"I don't know." Ilsa pouted. "Dead somewhere."

"Aeeiie!" wailed the Master of Sinanju. "Did you hear that, Remo? Ferris is dead. O woe! O misery! We are lost."

"I didn't know you liked the guy that much," Remo said.

"Like," spat Chiun. "I despise that wretch. First for allowing himself to be captured and second for not defending his life with his last breath. Did he not know that by dying he would disgrace me in the eyes of my emperor? Had he no consideration? How will I break this to Smith? O calamity!"

"Smith?" said Ilsa.

"A different Smith," said Remo. "Our Smith doesn't head any conspiracies, Jewish or otherwise. Next question. The nebulizer?"

Ilsa Gans hesitated before answering. It was growing clear that the sexual creature who called himself Remo was not going to take her. Not now, not ever. She took a deep breath and gained control of her passion. She would save it for the man she had always been saving it for-Konrad Blutsturz.

"All your questions will be answered at the meeting," she said.

"What meeting?"

"The great meeting. Herr Fuhrer is going to make an announcement of his future plans. I came here to tell everyone," she added, indicating with her head a public-address microphone sitting on the desk.

Remo hesitated.

"Everyone will be there," said Ilsa. "You can ask us all your questions then."

Remo turned to Chiun. "What do you think, Little Father?"

"If we get all the racists together in one place," Chiun said bitterly, "maybe the room will catch fire and there will be fewer racists in the world. Do not ask me, I am inconsolable over the loss of the metallurgist."

"Okay," Remo told Ilsa. "Make your announcement, but no tricks."

"No tricks," said Ilsa, picking up the heavy microphone and flicking the switch that would send her voice out through the broadcast speakers installed in every building in Fortress Purity. "I could not possibly trick superior beings like yourselves."

"This one at least is educable," Chiun sniffed.

Chapter 25

Konrad Blutsturz lay staring at the ceiling. He imagined himself back in Argentina, in the green room, in the 1950's. Only by reliving the horror of those days could he steel himself for what he was about to do, the great test of his will.

The doctors had told him he must have a week's rest. The new limbs were attached through surgical implants and were detachable, replaceable, but the incisions made for the implants that were fitted into the shattered bones of his stumps required time to heal. Unnecessary movement was restricted, even forbidden.

And so Konrad Blutsturz lay on his bed, as helpless as in the days when he was a one-limbed abortion, flopping and twisting in his nightmares.

Except now he was not limited by the lack of limbs, but by the weight of his new limbs. His shining blue titanium limbs.

It was dangerous, but again, Konrad Blutsturz had no choice.

And so he willed his left arm to move.

It lifted, heavily. Good. He pushed himself to a sitting position using both arms, the strong good one and the stronger blue one. The bed creaked in agony.

He whipped the sheet off his body. The legs twitched like an insect's mandibles. They gleamed like locust armor.

With an effort that sent pain searing along his nerves, Konrad Blutsturz stood up. It felt strange, giddy, to stand so tall after so long. For nearly forty years he had looked at the world from the eye level of a small child. Now he stood as tall as any man. Any erect man.

In the corner stood the motorized wheelchair which had meant freedom and mobility to him. But it belonged to the past. He would crush it, but he needed its use one final time.

Konrad Blutsturz walked to the wheelchair. His legs, powered by battery packs implanted in the limbs themselves, moved with the soundless animation of a marionette.

The first step was easy. The second easier. The motion was smooth. Mere will made each step happen, like real legs. Microcomputers controlled the striding gait. His unfeeling legs carried him with a rolling motion, as if he were on a ship.

With his strong titanium left arm, Konrad Blutsturz lifted the heavy wheelchair.

He walked out of the room, straghtening his torso to control the imbalance. But even the weight of the wheelchair did not deter him. He noticed his walk was becoming smoother as the titanium parts grew used to their task. He grinned.

Passing a hall mirror, he saw himself completely for the first time. But instead of pride. He felt anger. He saw a gleaming monster. He cursed the name of Harold Smith under his breath and strode on.

The Fortress Purity auditorium was deserted. The rows of collapsible chairs had been cleared for the operation, but now even the operating table was gone. There was just the platform stage and a dark stain where Ferris D'Orr had had the life squeezed out of his neck.

Konrad Blutsturz did not think of Ferris D'Orr. Ferris D'Orr belonged to the past. Konrad Blutsturz belonged to the future.

The wooden access ramp cracked under his massive weight as he mounted the stage and set the wheelchair facing where the audience would stand. He was nude, but not as nude as he had been. Something pink and rubbery dangled from the hairlessness of his crotch. But he did not think of that now either as he ripped the great red Nazi banner from the back wall. He thought only of the menace of the two rnen who had followed him to Fortress Purity.

Konrad Blutsturz wrapped himself up in the flag he no longer believed in and settled into the wheelchair. It squealed under his weight, the spoked wheels bending into useless ovals. He arranged the red flag until his entire body was shrouded like a mummy on an ancient throne.

He waited. Soon Ilsa's announcement would come. Soon the White Aryan League of America and Alabama would be assembled before him. And soon they would all fall like grass before a mower.

They filed into the auditorium slowly at first, then in a hurried rush. He regarded them with black eyes that were so glazed with pain they barely saw. But soon the pain would be a thing of the past. Soon he would have his two greatest desires, Ilsa's supple body and Harold Smith's limp corpse.

The assembled Aryan League stood before him, muttering under their breath. They had heard that their Fuhrer was to undergo a miraculous operation. But there he was, gray-faced and sickly, wrapped in a red blanket, in his wheelchair. What had happened?

Konrad Blutsturz' eyes came to life when Ilsa stepped into the standing-room-only crowd. With her were the two dangers to his life, the man called Remo and the other one, the Oriental. They saw him, and started through the crowd toward him. But the crowd was thick.

He saw Ilsa lock the great double doors behind them. Good. She understood. He had already locked the side door. Now there was no exit from the windowless room. No exit for any of them.

This is how it was to be with the Harold Smiths, thought Konrad Blutsturz. He would invite them all to this room with some ruse. A giveaway or sweepstakes lure. Every Harold Smith who could be the Harold Smith. And after the doors were locked . . .

The two men were halfway through the crowd already. They seemed to find the paths of least resistance in the mass which pressed closer to the stage in anticipation.

Konrad Blutsturz raised his voice.

"I have summoned you, men and women of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama, because a grave danger threatens our purity. Infiltrators, enemies of the White Arvan League."

The crowd tensed. They looked at one another fearfully. They remembered what had happened the last time their Fuhrer had said such words. One of them had died.

"These enemies are among us now," said Konrad Blutsturz. "They are in this room. One of them is white, the other is not."

"I think he means us, Remo," said Chiun, in the crowd.

All heads turned toward the squeaky sound of Chiun's voice.

"Now you did it, Little Father," said Remo.

"You see them," called Konrad Blutsturz. "Now deal with them!"

The crowd exploded. Remo and Chiun were inside a boiling tangle of humanity that was clawing, squeezing, groping for them.

Chiun whirled in place like a miniature dervish, and the people in his immediate vicinity flew away frorn him like gravel off a flywheel.

Remo took the opposite tactic. He grabbed the reaching hands and pulled them toward him. Bodies followed Remo's yanking motions, colliding into other bodies.

Konrad Blutsturz watched in amazement touched with admiration. Two men against hundreds. Two unarmed men against a disciplined mob. And not only did they remain untouched, but they continued to advance on the stage, effortlessly, inexorably.

It was at that moment, unnoticed by the furious mob, that Konrad Blutsturz rose from the crushed wheelchair to his full height.

Towering on the stage, he sucked in a triumphant breath. He could smell the sweat of humans in conflict, see their frenzy, almost taste their bodies. Even in this elemental state, they were but masses of organs and tissue and bone. He was all that and more. He was titanium and servo motors and over six feet tall. And as he willed it, his artificial knee joints whirred, and like a telescope stretching out, he rose from six feet to six and a half and then to a figure of flesh and blue metal that stood over eight feet tall.

He held out his left arm, and at a thought, there was a loud snick and a shining blade of metal clicked out from his forearm and into place.

At a signal, Ilsa switched off the lights.

In that first hush of darkness, Konrad Blutsturz stepped off the stage like a silent juggernaut.

The darkness meant little to Remo and Chiun. Actually, it helped. Their eyes, trained in Sinanju, knew how to turn the dimness into clarity. But the eyes of their opponents saw only blackness. People milled about them in confusion.

That made it easier to pick them off. A chop here, a pressure on the neck nerves there. Every hand that reached for them was turned into a handle to use against the attacker.

Grunts and groans and panicky screams started to fill the room.

Remo's ears picked out a different kind of sound in the noisy confusion, a heavy tread, not human, not flesh. Remo looked toward the stage. He saw the dim outlines of a wheelchair, but it was empty.

Then there was a loud, thunking sound, simple, harsh, final, like an ax digging into a tree trunk. Into a spongy tree trunk.

Someone screamed shrilly. "My arm! My arm!" The tart scent of blood floated to Remo's nostrils. "Chiun! There's something loose in this room," Remo warned.

"Yes," said Chiun, kicking the legs out from under two assailants. "I am!"

"No, something different."

The hazy shadows of milling bodies blocked Remo's vision. He had a brief glimpse of an arm rising and falling, and at the end of that arm there was a swordlike blade.

Every time the arm fell, someone screamed and another body thudded to the floor.

The screaming turned into wholesale panic. Remo moved, sighting on the flashing blade.

"Chiun, get these people out of here! They're being massacred."

"I am massacring them," said Chiun, knocking two heads together.

"Chiun! Do it!" yelled Remo. He moved toward the electrical field he sensed just ahead.

The thing towered over Remo, its movements strange. He circled behind the man or thing or whatever it was. Remo had learned one thing years ago, a great truth that Chiun had impressed upon him. When facing an unknown threat, never attack first. Observe. Understand. Only when an enemy revealed his weakness to you was it safe to go on the offensive.

Remo did not know what he faced in the blackness of the auditorium. His feet grazed fallen bodies, dismembered limbs. The floor was slick with blood, and the scent of it stung his nostrils with the sickness of wasted life. The thing was too tall for a man, yet it had a manlike heartbeat. Lungs, tired, laboring, respirated with difficulty.

At the same time, the thing carried an electrical field, low but powerful. Remo poised for a first feint. Suddenly light spilled through the opened double doors. Chiun had broken them down.

Remo saw the thing clearly then. It was Konrad Blutsturz, no longer a withered old husk in a wheelchair, but a thing half-man and half-machine, his face terrible with rage and wrinkles.

"Ilsa," Konrad Blutsturz shouted. "Do not let them escape! Any of them."

"Nobody's escaping," said Remo. "Especially you." Konrad Blutsturz turned at the sound of Remo's voice, his face contorting wordlessly.

He raised his titanium arm. It descended toward Remo, the curved blade snapping out from the forearm. Remo dodged the blade easily. It retracted, ready to slice again.

Remo slipped behind him. The blade mechanism appeared to be a spring-loaded sickle that retracted into the artificial forearm like a gigantic switchblade.

Remo poked with a steel-hard finger and broke the spring. The blade dropped, swinging uselessly on its hinge.

"I'd take that back," Remo said lightly. "It's defective."

"I will not be stopped now. Not by you."

"How about by me,'" Chiun said.

"By neither of you," said Konrad Blutsturz, his face wild and twisted.

"Be careful, Little Father," warned Remo.

"What is it?" asked Chiun in Korean as they circled Blutsturz warily.

"Bloodsucker. They've turned him into some kind of robot." said Remo.

"I can see that." snapped Chiun. "What I wish to know is what are its capabilities."

"Let's find out," said Remo.

"Let's wait." said Chum.

"He killed Ferris. We owe him for that." Remo moved in.

Bhatsturz' titanium hand clicked into a fist. He sent it sweeping before him, back and forth, back and forth, like a mace.

Remo ducked under his weaving arm and let go with an exploring kick.

Blutsturz' leg gave with the blow. The eight-foot figure wobbled on one leg until the off-balance limb found its footing.

"It is strong," said Chiun. "And nimble for a machine."

"It's only metal."

"Titanium," said Chiun worriedly. He slashed at the metal hand with his fingernails, which scored the metal, but the arm did not paralyze with pain, the way flesh would.

"It does not feel pain," said Chiun.

Konrad Blutsturz lunged for the Master of Sinanju. Chiun spun in a double-reverse movement that took him clear of the lumbering man-machine. He swept out an arm and took Remo by one wrist.

"Hey!" said Remo.

"Come," said Chiun. "We will fight this one another time. His techniques are unfamiliar."

"Nothing doing," said Remo, slipping loose.

Konrad Blutsturz bore down on him. Remo met him halfway. This time Remo went for the flesh-and-blood arm. He sent a two-fingered nerve thrust to the elbow joint.

"Arrh!" howled Konrad Blutsturz. He felt the shuddering bone-shock of Remo's blow. He clutched his elbow with his other hand, not thinking. His titanium fingers grabbed too hard and he screamed again at the pain he inflicted on himself.

"Ilsa," he called in his anguish.

Remo got behind the shuddering form. He kicked at the back of the knee joint or where the knee joint should be. Konrad Blutsturz went down on one metal knee. But almost as rapidly, he rose to his full height again.

"Come, Remo," said Chiun nervously.

And when Remo did not come, the Master of Sinanju intervened.

Chiun came up behind his pupil, while Remo's full concentration was on the awkward man-machine. While Remo was distracted, while Remo could not defend himself.

Chiun, his face warped with the pain of what he was about to do, struck Remo at the back of the neck-a short, clean chopping blow.

Remo tottered, and Chiun snapped him up, taking him under one leg and by the neck. Carrying his fallen pupil across his shoulders, the Master of Sinanju bounded for the doors.

On the threshold, he stopped and called a challenge to the weaving thing that was Konrad Blutsturz.

"You win for now, inhuman creature," he said, "but we will meet again. The Master of Sinanju promises it." Konrad Blutsturz barely heard the taunting challenge. The pain in his stumps was now too great to endure. His legs refused to move. His good arm hung limp at his side. The other one raised and lowered uncontrollably, like a child having a tantrum.

"Ilsa!" he called.

Ilsa Gans sent the van careening through the night, away from the hell that had been Fortress Purity. Fear rode her soft features. She bit her lower lip. It bled.

In the van's dark interior, lying on the floor, was the thing that was Konrad Blutsturz. He slept now. But it had taken all her strength to get him into the van when the carnage was over.

She had been forced out of the auditorium when the doors burst open. The crowd had nearly trampled her. She had stumped to the ordnance room and had gotten a machine pistol.

She shot her way back into the auditorium, shot without discrimination, without mercy. All that mattered was reaching the side of Konrad Blutsturz.

When she found him, he was sinking to the floor. There was no sign of the two enemies, Remo and Chiun. They weren't among the butchered bodies that lay everywhere in macabre profusion. But they no longer mattered. Getting her Fuhrer to safety did.

She talked Konrad Blutsturz to his feet, because he was too heavy to lug. But he could not stand. He was barelv conscious. There had been only one thing to do. She dismantled the limbs of which he had been so proud. She had uncoupled them from the titanium knobs implanted in each stump.

And carrying him in her arms, Ilsa had deposited him in the back of the van, on the floor, because there was no time to make him comfortable.

She would never have gone back for the blue arm and the insectlike legs, but in his delirium, Konrad Blutsturz had insisted. Just as he had insisted she bring the nebulizer.

Now she was speeding into the night. She did not know where she was going. She did not care where. All she wanted was to escape.

Chapter 26

Dr. Harold W. Smith was thinking of going home. He believed the immediate danger to himself was past, perhaps even averted. For over a week now no one named Harold Smith had been murdered or reported missing anywhere in the continental United States.

Smith sat at his administrator's desk at Folcroft Sanitarium. The killer should have found him by now, but he had not. There'd been no disturbances at Folcroft since Remo's sudden appearance. Smith had explained away Remo's attack to his guard staff as a former patient who had tried to readmit himself the hard way. The guards-none of whom was seriously injured-had accepted Smith's explanation that the patient had been turned over to the local police, and the matter was resolved.

Smith knew that if he were to be attacked, it would happen at his listed address-Folcroft. But to ensure his wife's safety, he was having his house watched. Two FBI agents were staked out at Smith's house to watch for what Smith's anonymous directive called "suspected terrorist activities." If anything happened there, his wife would be protected.

Smith wondered if it was now safe to call off those agents and return to a normal life. He wasn't sure. The killer had struck in a logical state-by-state itinerary. Folcroft should have been next. Perhaps it still was, Smith thought. Perhaps the killer didn't dare try to penetrate the security of Folcroft. Perhaps he was waiting for Smith to leave the grounds before striking. Could he have been arrested or intercepted?

Finally Smith decided he would stay put, at least for another day.

The secure phone rang. The CURE phone that Remo reported through.

Smith picked it up. "Yes?"

"Smitty?" It was Remo's voice. He sounded upset. "Bad news."

"What?"

"Ferris is dead. We were too late."

"The nebulizer?"

"Gone."

"Find it." Smith's voice was harsh. He didn't want to report failure to the President.

"Hey, I'm just making a courtesy call here," Remo said. "I don't work for you."

"I'm sorry," said Smith, thinking that if he upset Remo he would have to deal directly with Chiun. Smith preferred to deal with Remo. "Please tell me what happened down there."

"That's better," Remo said, mollified. He liked Smith better when he was polite. "We're at Fortress Purity. This place is a cesspool. Run by this old Nazi, Konrad something. I can't pronounce it. It's German."

"Go on," Smith said. Remo never could handle details. "This old fart is some kind of cripple, One arm, no legs. But he's the guy who kidnapped Ferris. You'll never guess why."

"You're right," said Smith, who was picked to head CURE because he had no imagination. "I won't. Tell me, please."

"He needed the nebulizer to rebuild himself. You heard me right. When we caught up with him, he had artificial legs and an arm rigged with a meat cleaver. He's some kind of bionic half-man, half-machine."

"Cyborg."

"Huh?"

"The technical term for what you just described is a cyborg, a human being reconstituted with artificial parts."

"If you say so," Remo said. "He was supposed to be the leader of this freaking place, but when we caught up to him, he was slaughtering every one of these neo-Nazis. I can't figure why."

"I ran a background check on the White Aryan League," said Smith. "It was founded by a Boyce Barlow. A few days ago his body, and the bodies of his two cousins, were discovered in a Maryland dump. Obviously this Konrad person got them out of the way."

"But why? To take over? He ended up killing almost everyone."

"I can't explain that part. Where is this person now?"

"Got away."

"How?"

"I was zeroing in on him when Chiun jumped me. He was afraid I'd get hurt. You know how he is when he has to deal with something outside of his experience. If it's not in the Sinanju histories, you don't mess with it. Run now, fight later."

"Where is Chiun now?"

"Teaching what's left of the survivors why Koreans are the true master race. Look out, Smitty. When he's done, the first Korean-supremacy group in world history will set up in Alalnma."

"Remo, it's very important that we recover the nebulizer."

"To you and me both. I could have strangled Chiun when I woke up from that nerve chop. The sooner I end this thing, the sooner Chiun and I can have it out about going back to Sinanju."

"Have you any leads?"

"When Chiun is finished, I'm going to work these people over myself I'll come up with something."

"Keep me informed."

"Say the magic word," Remo said airily.

"Please."

"Thank you." And Remo hung up.

Smith's thoughts were more troubled than ever. The death of Ferris D'Orr would not be easy to explain to the President, but if the nebulizer were recovered, it would salvage the situation.

Unfortunately, Smith could not report the nebulizer's recovery just yet. Another man in his position might have been tempted to wait a day or two to report in the hopes of giving his superior more positive news. Not Smith. Even if it meant his removal from CURE-a possibility, given the failure to protect Ferris D'Orr-Smith would not shirk his immediate duty.

Without hesitation, he picked up the red phone. Almost as rapidly, he replaced it.

The CURE computer terminal had beeped twice, a signal of urgent incoming data.

Smith turned to the console, all thought of the President evaporating from his mind.

The computer told of a murder in the sleepy town of Mount Olive in North Carolina. A man named Harold Q. Smith, age sixty-two, had been murdered. He was found on the stoop of his home, his head lopped off as if by a guillotine. Police were investigating. The man had no known enemies, and there were no obvious suspects.

Smith punched up his tactical map of the United States and added the name of Harold Q. Smith to the list of Smith victims, now numbering fourteen, He added the place of death, and the number fourteen appeared within the borders of North Carolina, corresponding to the locale of Mount Olive.

Smith hit a key and a green line zipped between the locale of the last Harold Smith killing, Oakham, Massachusetts, and Mount Olive. The line was long, straight, and paralleled the east coast. It went through lower New England and New York State, right past Long Island and Rye, New York.

The killer had bypassed him. Completely.

Smith wondered if he had made a mistake in calculating the killer's methods. Perhaps he was not traveling by road, as Smith had surmised. Possibly he was not selecting his targets by telephone listings either.

It should have been a relief. It was not.

It injected a maddening note of randomness to what Harold Smith had, with his rational mind, perceived as a logical system. If the killer was deviating into another pattern, Smith, in the long run, remained the probable target.

The agony of waiting could be prolonged indefinitely. Smith groaned inwardly, and settling himself, prepared to attack this new factor with all his rational skill.

Harold Q. Smith had heard a knock at his front door.

He was watching a football game, in which his team was leading by three points in the fourth quarter. He was not happy at being interrupted, and so went to the door grumbling.

The girl standing on the porch was young and very pretty. Smith had never seen her before, and because Mount Olive was a college town, he automatically assumed she was a student. Maybe she was here to sell him a magazine. Sometimes the students did that for spending money.

The girl smiled sweetly. and Smith's bad mood went away. She had that kind of smile.

"Hi! Are you Harold Q. Smith?"

"That's right, young lady."

"I have a friend of yours in my van."

"Friend?"

"Yes, he'd like to speak with you."

"Well," said Harold Q. Smith slowly, thinking of his football game, "tell him to come in."

"Oh, he can't," Ilsa said sadly. "He can't walk, poor thing."

"Oh," said Harold Q. Smith. "I suppose I have to go to him."

"Would you?"

Smith would, and did.

The blood girl hauled open the side door. Harold Q. Smith stuck his head in before stepping up into the van and saw the most hideous face he had ever seen. Ever.

The face belonged to a body covered to the neck in blankets. An old man. Very old, with tiny ears and bright black eyes. His body didn't seem to make a normal outline under the rough cloth.

"Smith!" the man hissed.

"Do I know you?"

Then Smith felt the gun in his back. He did not have to turn around to know it was a gun. In fact, he didn't think it would be a good idea to turn around at all.

"Inside," the blond girl said, her voice no longer sounding of honey and sunshine.

Smith stepped up. He had to bend over to stand in the cramped interior. It was okay, though, because it made the fall when the girl clubbed him over the head that much shorter.

"I have waited for this moment, Harold Q. Smith," Konrad Blutsturz intoned. "Forty years, I have waited."

"I think he's out."

"Eh?"

"He can't hear you," said Ilsa. "I guess I knocked him out. Sorry."

"Bah!" spat Konrad Blutsturz. "It does not matter. He is not the right Smith and I am too weary to kill him. Drag him back to his porch and shoot him there."

"Can I cut his head off instead?" Ilsa asked, eyeing the curved blade from Blutsturz' blue left arm.

"They gush when their heads are cut off," Blutsturz warned.

"I'll stand clear." Ilsa promised.

"Please yourself," he said, closing his eyes. "Just as long as he is dead."

"Oh, goody," said Ilsa, grabbing Harold Q. Smith by the heels.

Ilsa Gans replaced the pay phone in the gas station that, even in winter, smelled of a mix of sweet magnolia blossoms and gas fumes.

She scooped up the pile of dimes she had used to make her calls. She had started out with forty dollars in change. Now there was only sixty cents. But she had found what she wanted. She couldn't wait to tell her Fuhrer.

She trotted back to the waiting van and climbed behind the wheel.

"I found the perfect place," she called back.

In the dim rear of the van, lying on a fold-down cot, lay Konrad Blutsturz.

"Where?" he croaked.

"Folcroft Sanitarium. It's in New York. It took me a zillion calls to find a place, but this one is perfect. The admitting person assured me it's one of the best in the country. They'll accept you right away, and best of all, they'll let me stay with you as your personal nurse. Some of the others would have taken you, but not me. I knew you didn't want us separated."

"Good, Ilsa," groaned Konrad Blutsturz. His stumps ached, they ached to the bone. With his real hand he pulled the blankets tighter. They were coarse. Army blankets. They itched, and somehow the itch was more maddening than the pain.

"And you'll never guess what," Ilsa went on in the cheery voice she used when his spirits were low. "The man in charge of Folcroft, his name is Smith. Harold Smith. Isn't that wild?"

"Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz. And his eyes blazed.

Chapter 27

Remo Williams left the headquarters office of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama and rejoined Chiun in the adjoining conference room.

"What did Emperor Smith say?" the Master of Sinanju asked. Chiun stood before the assembled survivors of the White Aryan League, who squatted on the floor, their hands clasped behind their heads like POW's in a war movie.

"He's not happy, but if we bring back the nebulizer right away. I don't think he'll fire you."

Chiun's facial hair trembled.

"Fire?" he quavered. "Smith said I might be fired? No Master of Sinanju has ever been fired. Never."

"He didn't say fire, exactly," Remo admitted, "but he's very upset."

"Then we will recover this device," said Chiun firmly.

"How?"

Chiun yanked one of the seated men to his feet. The man came up like a springing jack-in-the-box.

"This one will tell us," Chiun said.

Remo looked at the man. He was frightened, but there was a streak of surly arrogance in his meaty, middle-aged face. His thick eyebrows and brush mustache were the same whisk-broom color.

"What's your name, buddy?" Remo demanded.

The man squared his shoulders. "Dr. Manfred Beflecken."

"You say that like it means something."

"It does. I am one of the finest surgeons in the world."

"He is the one who created that vile thing," said Chiun.

"Did you?"

"I had that privilege. Bionics are my specialty."

"You created a monster," Remo said.

"No," said Dr. Manfred Beflecken. "Konrad Blutsturz was already a monster. The war made him so. I made him a better monster."

"Insane," said Chiun. "This physician is insane. And he is a racist, possibly the worst one of all. I tried your word game on him, Remo. He hates everyone. Even these other racists. He thinks Germans are the master race. Germans! The only thing Germans were ever good for was soldiering-and when was the last time they won a war?"

"These others are nothing," said Dr. Beflecken. "Mere tools to achieve Herr Fuhrer's ends."

"The only end I care about is ending that thing's life," Remo said grimly. "Where can I find him?"

The doctor shrugged. "Who can say?"

"You can, and you will," said Remo, grabbing the man by the shoulder. Remo dug his thumb into Dr. Beflecken's beefy shoulder muscles until he felt the hard ball of the man's shoulder joint. Dr. Beflecken's face flushed. He struggled, but Remo's hand squeezed the fight out of him.

"What you did to Blutsturz I can undo. To him. To you. To anyone," Remo warned. "Last chance."

"I am a loyal German of the Reich," said Dr. Beflecken.

Remo pressed. The man's shoulder separated with an audible pop.

Tears squeezed from Dr. Beflecken's eyes. His right arm dropped lower than his left by a noticeable inch. Remo switched shoulders.

"There is a cabin," Dr. Beflecken gasped as he felt Remo's thumb seek his other shoulder joint. His knees felt like tires leaking air. "In the Florida Everglades. Near a place called Flamingo. Herr Fuhrer lived there before coming to Fortress Purity. He may go there."

"Hear that, Little Father?"

"No," said the Master of Sinanju. "I hear only the voice of my ancestors, accusing me of becoming the first Master of Sinanju to be laid off like a common ditchdigger. "

"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't stopped me. I could have taken Bloodsucker or whatever his name is."

"And you wouldn't have been foolish enough to believe you could take him if your lust to return to Sinanju had not clouded your thinking. How many times have I told you, never assume that just because familiar things fall before your skill, that it will be so with unfamiliar things. Your arrogance could have gotten you killed. And then where would my village be?"

"In Korea, where it's always been," said Remo. "And where I wish I was right now."

"You would abandon me in America, Remo? Alone, the only perfect person in a land of fat racists."

"No, Little Father, I would take you back to Sinanju. With rne. Where we both belong."

Chiun's parchment visage softened. He turned away so that his pupil could not see his face.

"We will discuss it later," he said. "After we recover the nebulizer and ensure my continued employment."

"Fine. Let's go."

"What about these vermin?" said Chiun, waving a hand at the cowering members of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama. "Should we not dispose of them? Perhaps Emperor Smith would appreciate a few heads to set upon the gates of Fortress Folcroft. Heads are wonderful for warding off enemies. I see some good ones here."

"We don't have time."

The Master of Sinanju shrugged, and followed Remo out the door.

"What about me?" asked Dr. Beflecken, clutching his useless dangling arm.

"Oh, right." said Remo, stepping back into the room. "You rebuilt Bloodsucker, didn't you?"

"Blutsturz. Yes."

"And you could do it again? With someone else?"

"I am very skilled."

"Good-bye," said Remo, driving two fingers into the man's eyes. Dr. Manfred Beflecken collapsed into a pile of dead flesh.

"You were right, Little Father," said Remo. "It's a handy stroke."

"Remind me to kill you later," Chiun said to the surviving members of the White Aryan League in parting. Moe Stooge had used it often in similar circumstances, and the Master of Sinanju was certain that the great entertainer would not mind his using it.

Dr. Harold Smith removed the special briefcase from his office locker. He opened it and checked the minicomputer and telephone hookup that would link him to the CURE computers during his planned trip to North Carolina.

Before he closed the briefcase, he slipped his old automatic into a special recess that would enable him to get it past airport security.

On his way out of the office, he spoke to his secretary. "I will be away for at least a day, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith told her. "I'm sure you'll be able to handle matters until my return."

"Of course, Dr. Smith." said Eileen Mikulka, who prided herself on the fact that she could easily run Folcroft's day-to-day operations while her boss was out of town.

"I will be in touch."

"Oh, Dr. Smith?" Smith turned.

"Yes?"

"They're admitting that new patient now. The one who survived a botched surgical procedure. I thought you might like to welcome him, as usual."

"Thank you for telling me," said Dr. Smith. "What is his name?"

Mrs. Mikulka consulted a desk log. "A Mr. Conrad."

"Fine, I will do that."

Smith took the elevator to the main lobby, where he saw the new patient being wheeled through the big glass doors by two burly attendants. A young blond girl in a white nurse's uniform hovered over the man on the gurney, concern pricking her soft features.

Smith strode toward them.

"Hi! I'm Ilsa," the blond nurse said. She had the chipper personality of a health-care worker fresh to the field.

"Welcome to Folcroft Sanitarium," Smith said, briefly shaking her hand. "I'm chief administrator of this facility."

"Oh! Dr. Smith."

"That's right."

"I've heard of you," Ilsa said brightly. "Allow me to present Mr. Conrad."

The man on the gurney stared up with glazed black eyes, his face as dry and bloodless as if it were carved from shell. The dry lips were drawn back over brownish gums in a deathlike rictus.

Smith offered a tentative hand, but quickly shoved it into a pocket when he realized the man had no legs. The covering sheet lay flat where the man's legs should have been. Smith couldn't be certain the man wasn't also missing his arms. Better not to find out the uncomfortable way.

Ilsa bent over the patient. "This is Dr. Smith. I told you about him. Dr. Harold Smith."

Suddenly the black eyes brightened with life. "Smith," he hissed.

Dr. Smith recoiled at the violence with which the dry husk of a man spoke his name. The old head trembled, lifting off the pillow. One arm, strong, muscular, but horribly scarred, flailed out from under the sheet. The patient's gnarled hand clawed the air. It seemed to claw at him.

"Calm down," soothed Ilsa. "It's all right. I'm here."

"Smith," the man hissed again. "Smith!"

"He sometimes gets this way," Ilsa told Smith as she gently forced Konrad Blytsturz' agitated head back onto the fluffy pillow.

"Er, yes," said Dr. Smith. "Let me assure you he'll get the best of care at Folcroft."

Dr. Harold Smith hurriedly escaped out the door, even as the poor patient kept repeating his name over and over again. Smith shuddered, even though he had seen worse cases come through the Folcroft gates. Patients like Mr. Conrad were often bitterly mad at the world. Even so, the utter venom that seemed to coat the way he spoke Smith's name was disturbing. It was almost las if the man knew him. And hated him.

But that, of course, was impossible, thought Harold W. Smith. He had never seen Mr. Conrad before. Smith drove off the Folcroft grounds wondering what terrible tragedy had reduced the man to his present pitiful state.

Mrs. Harold W. Smith stood before the floor-length mirror in the bedroom of her modest Tudor-style home, examining herself critically.

"Frumpy," she decided aloud.

The other two dresses made her look the same. She had just purchased them, and while they had seemed to flatter her full figure in the store dressing-room mirrors with the perky salesgirl insisting they all made her look "fashionable," in the privacy of her home she saw herself as she had always been-a frump.

There was no help for it. Even as a teenager, she had possessed only a certain dowdy charm. Harold had married her anyway. And as the years passed by, blurring the modeling of her face, etching motherly wrinkles about her eyes, and filling out a body that, even at twenty-five, belonged to a middle-aged woman, Harold Smith had continued to love her.

True, Harold had peculiar attitudes about matrimonial love. He had never surprised her with perfume or flowers or new clothes, even in the early years of their life together-because he considered any purchase that didn't come with a five-year, fully refundable guarantee frivolous. The most romantic gift Harold Smith had ever given her was in 1974, when he had purchased a riding lawn mower for her use. The neighborhood boy had raised his rates ten cents an hour and, because Harold's hours were impossible and there was no other boy to do the work, Harold Smith had splurged on the tractor mower because he didn't want her to tire herself with the chore.